


Enabler: Ex Machina

by Zumberge



Series: Enabler [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Androids, Animal Ears, Breast Expansion, Come Inflation, Consentacles, Eggpreg, F/F, F/M, Inflation, Latex, Light Bondage, Maids, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mecha, Open Relationships, Orgy, Other, Oviposition, Penis expansion, Philosophical noodling about the nature of divinity, Porn With Plot, Shrinking, Slime, Stuffing, Talking philosophy with the unionized robot sex worker, Tentacles, Transformation, Vaginal Fingering, blueberry inflation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:57:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 38,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zumberge/pseuds/Zumberge
Summary: Unmoored from her home, Zoe wakes up in an unfamiliar world.  One of high technology, magic, incredibly good-looking people, and near-limitless potential to indulge in weird fetishes and sex.  Which isn't bad, but for the question of how she even got there...Includes the side story, "Zoe's Big Tentacle Orgy" and the epilogue, "Gott Sein," as well as occasional one-shots.





	1. Chapter 1

The air was cold and still, the room deathly silent and, for a moment, the young woman wasn't sure she had opened her eyes at all. Her nude body lay across polished stone tiles, and as she pushed herself up into a kneeling position she turned her head to and fro, trying to find some sort of landmark in the darkness. She reached out with one hand, slowly feeling around her but only coming up with empty air. Carefully she rose to her feet and, arms out, shuffled her way forward.

As she moved she tried to recall the events that brought her to this point. Her past was clear, but the nearer she approached the present it became a jumble: Flashes of buildings, faces, scenery, but nothing concrete. She suspected she had been drugged and abducted at first, but despite her fear she felt lucid and awake, and none of her body felt sore from the chafe of restraints. Pausing, she ran her hands through her short hair, checking her scalp for blood or bruises and, not finding any, concluded that she wasn't knocked out. It wasn't as reassuring as she hoped it would be, since it didn't leave her with many other possibilities.

After few moments of quiet movement her hands pressed roughly against a stone wall and, after some deliberation, she chose a direction and began walking, hands moving up and down in search of anything indented in or protruding from the stone. A minute later her search bore fruit, though not in the way she had hoped; something hard bumped against her knee, and she recoiled, hissing a curse under her breath. Reaching down, she felt for the object: Enameled wood, stiff leather, metal studs. A chair, well-made. Too well-made for a prison cell, she thought.

Beside the chair her hands met with wood panels and metal drawer pulls, and she began the slow, clumsy search of a desk she felt but could not see. Sheets of brittle paper, old books bound in leather, a corked glass jar. Metal formed to a dull point, mounted in the end of something hard she mistook for plastic at first. An ink pen; it took her a second to realize what it was. So she was somewhere old.

One of her hands brushed against a round metal stand and, mounted in it, a narrow waxy cylinder, and her heart jumped. She redoubled her search and began patting down the top of the desk and going through the drawers again, trying not to panic as it went on. One hand slipped into a cubby hole, the sole contents a small wooden box that rattled as she picked it up. She pressed her fingers against the top, and was rewarded as it slid open, the contents about a dozen thin wooden sticks with rough tip.

Setting the candle down she withdrew one of the wooden sticks and, with a silent prayer, struck it along the side. The tip flared to life, a tiny dancing flame, and she carefully yet quickly lit the taper, only blowing out the match once it threatened to burn her fingers. It wasn't much light, but it was light nonetheless.

In the dim illumination her attention was drawn to her left wrist, which bore what looked like a simple deep green bracelet made out of a single piece of plastic. It was lightweight, yet dense and dull to the point of being nearly non-reflective. It was nowhere near wide enough to fit over her hand, which was strange, because it was a single solid ring. She pushed it out of her mind; for the time being it was the least of her problems.

She sifted through the pages on the table before opening a book. It looked Slavic, not that she knew any Slavic languages. Still, it helped narrow down her location to somewhere in eastern Europe. Potentially. Which was quite a ways from Florida.

Terrific.

A search of the rest of the table turned up two more candles, and she took them in one hand along with the box of matches. Turning, she held the lit candle out, sweeping it across the room. It built from blue-gray stone, and was smaller than she thought; she must have woken up near the far corner and walked the long way across, touching the wall just to the side of a long bookcase. Mounted into the wall on nails above her head was a glass and brass lantern, though she couldn't see any bowls for oil or melted candles. On the fringe of the candle's light was a door; she approached and tested the knob, finding it unlocked. So she wasn't trapped, or at least, not in there alone.

The room beyond the door was pitch black, a dais rising up on her right side. Atop it were candelabras and an altar facing rows of wooden pews. The ceiling curved up above her in an arch, lanterns hanging down on chains. Inset onto the walls on either side were small reliefs of men and women in robes, tarnished silver coins and piles of dust in front of them. She hoped for some familiar icon on the wall behind the altar; it was none she had ever seen, pointed and ominous.

This she knew about, albeit faintly: Old gods, local faiths and cults. When the Catholic missionaries came they converted them by appealing to their pre-existing faith - that their gods were really saints and angels in the service of the one true God. But this was different: Whoever built this had taken the rituals, but the gods were still their own, perhaps centuries after they should have been gone.

She stepped past the pews, slowly sweeping the candle in front of her. A few bodies were still seated, dressed in humble Enlightenment-era clothing. It would have dated the rooms were it not for the fact that the bodies were mummified from age, dried and desiccated, little more than skeletons with papery, flaking skin. She estimated that it would have had to take centuries for this to happen, which simply raised more questions without answering any. Very little of their clothing was still wearable, and she wasn't desperate enough to strip them of that which was, though she did relieve one of them of a cloak that was still in passable condition.

As she continued to explore, heading down hallways and into more stone rooms, she tried to formulate a halfway sensible picture of what she was seeing. It was too new to be a mere cloistered pagan hideout, and too old to be a relic of the eighteenth century. After she found a room with wide stone troughs filled with dried out dirt and racks of farming implements she simply gave up, passing it off as either beyond her ken or part of an overly elaborate trick.

The candle had burned halfway down by the time she found a set of stairs, a wide spiral staircase leading up and down into darkness. She paused to think: If it was below ground then going down wasn't going to help her escape; the same with going up if it was above ground. There was a lower limit to how far -up- something could be compared to down, however, and even if she did find herself at the top of a tower, at least it offered her more options than being at the bottom of a pit. So, up it was.

There were two more floors above her, at which point the staircase simply continued. She climbed, only thinking to count the steps after she had gone up too many to recall. Just as she wondered for the third time when they would end, they did, in a slab of sheared-off stone and collapsed rubble. Stunned disbelief gave way to a litany of curses before she finally composed herself, and she held the stump of the candle over the stones in search of an opening or weak point. There didn't have to be one - there may not have been one - but to simply lay down and wait for death was unacceptable.

It was no small mercy for her when, holding the candle at just the right angle, she chanced upon a reflective glimmer in a chamber to the side of the rubble. Setting her light down she pawed at the stones, throwing away smaller chunks before struggling with the larger fragments, letting them tumble down the stairs behind her in a cascade of echoes.

As she worked her mind wandered: She had seen things like this before - sealed-off exits in remote locations - though in movies and games, not in real life. In this sort of situation there would be a corpse nearby, perhaps two sitting hand-in-hand, as people waited for the end. But here the rubble was untouched, and there were no signs of panic or disarray below. Everyone died suddenly where they were, all at once, then the way out collapsed. That nobody else came down here suggested to her that either nobody knew they were down here, or nobody was left to remember.

Suddenly she wasn't as enthusiastic to escape.

With the last of the rubble clear, she inspected the uncovered hole. It lead into an underground waterway, and was thankfully just large enough for her. Removing the cloak and throwing it through before her, she took the candlestick in one hand and the two unlit ones and the matchbox in the other and began to crawl through. The stone was coarse, and she grit her teeth as it bit into her, leaving cuts and scrapes across her chest and torso as she squirmed through, blood smeared across the wounds.

She put the cloak back on and stood, ankle-deep in chill water with a ceiling so low she had to stoop. Water had to get in from somewhere, she reasoned, and that somewhere had to be upstream. Unsure of how else to escape and not wanting to go down any further if she could help it, she took a moment to figure out which way the water was flowing, then headed in the opposite direction.

It was slow, cold going, but eventually she saw the faintest glimmer of daylight reflected in the water just as the candle flame flickered and died. She quickened her pace, splashing through the stream and rounding a bend to find a small cave. The roof had collapsed inward, leaving heaps of stone and dirt and steep slopes of grass-covered turf leading to the surface. Setting the candles and matchbox down, she hurried over to one of the slopes, digging her fingers and toes into the turf and knotted roots before slowly scaling it.

She surfaced in the middle of a forest filled with high, leafy trees and dense undergrowth. It was cool but not uncomfortably so, a small mercy considering she was still mostly nude. Pacing about she turned to and fro, craning her head for a better look at her surroundings. Squinting into the distance she could make out a clear section that could have been many things but she hoped was a road. She reflexively ran one finger up the bridge of her nose, then paused, thinking for a second before shaking it off and heading for the clearing.

The clearing was a wide dirt road, about the width of a four-lane highway. It must have been a major thoroughfare, she thought, probably for easy transit of formations of soldiers. Large roads meant large cities, and and even if the rest of the world was as old or as dead as what she crawled out of, her odds were better in an urban area rather than an underground-

She froze, staring into the distance. There was a vehicle approaching her. That wasn't unusual, considering that it was a road, and in light of what she had seen it was even welcome.

What was unusual was what it -was-.

It was a van, silver-white, and unmistakably new in design. Too new, in fact, all smooth lines in the front and sides, and emanating a quiet -humming- as it neared. Unsure of what to do she simply watched it, only recovering her senses and waving it down as it drew close.

The van rolled to a quick stop a few feet from her. She heard the driver's door open and a second later a young man about her age and height circled around the front. He was slender but not thin, and clean-shaven, tan skin contrasting sharply with his short platinum blond curls. His T-shirt bore the logo of a company she didn't recognize, and beneath that and his jeans she could see what looked like a full-body blue and black diving suit that was either modern, cutting edge, or some combination of the two.

"Are you okay?" he asked, genuine concern in his voice. "What are you doing out here so close to the Wild Zone? Are you hurt?"

She shook her head numbly.

"We need to get you out of here." He gently rested his hand on her shoulder, escorting her to the back of the van before opening one of the doors. The inside was clean, with a few small boxes on one side and a cot built into the other. "Lie down if you need to. The inside is shielded, so you should be fine."

She climbed in and the door closed behind her, the young man appearing in the drivers seat a few seconds later. There was a rising hum as the vehicle picked up speed, and she looked past his shoulder to see a floating holographic display on the bottom edge of the windshield.

"You're lucky I found you," he said. "Not many people come this way. Oh, I didn't introduce myself yet, did I? I'm William. William Vinson." He glanced back at her. "You, uh, can speak, right? What's your name?"

"Zoe," she replied. "It's Zoe."


	2. Chapter 2

"Zoe, huh?" William nodded. "Where are you from, Zoe?"

"Saverno Beach," Zoe said. A second later she added, "Florida."

"...oh."

"Yeah, I'm..." She forced out a laugh, pulling the old cloak a little tighter around her as she stared at the floor of the van. "I'm a little far from home, aren't I."

"A little," he said hesitantly.

"I'm glad I found someone who spoke English, though."

William glanced into the rear view mirror at her, and his brow furrowed briefly. "Are you feeling okay?"

"I'm... not sure, really. I had dig my way out of a dungeon, but I don't know what happened before that. It's all just a blur."

After a moment of thought he said, "I know a doctor. If you like I can bring you in and get you checked out."

"I'd appreciate that, thanks."

He nodded, easing the van to a stop. "Let me just call her to let her know we're coming." Opening the door he stepped out, closing it behind him and walking a few paces away. Pausing to glance behind him he drew his phone from his pocket, tapping the screen a few times and waiting.

"DuLac." A woman's voice, mature and melodical in tone.

"Aenor, it's William. I'm bringing home a girl."

"Congratulations!"

"No, no, I mean..." He rubbed his eyes. "I found her near the edge of the Wild Zone. She was naked and scratched up, and she seems a little confused. She says she's from 'Florida.'"

Aenor let out a low "hmm."

"From what she said I'm assuming it's coastal."

"It's not any place I'm familiar with." After a few seconds of silence there was the muted tapping of keys. "It's not on Feoreard or in the colonies, either."

"She also said that she was surprised I spoke English."

After another moment of silence she said, "Billy, bring her in, but tell her to lie down in the back of your van and rest on the way. When you get here, park outside the service entrance and head straight for the elevator to our floor. She's most likely in shock, and it is -very- important that we don't panic her or make her believe that she's in danger. So try to be friendly."

"But not Grant friendly."

Aenor laughed. "Basically."

"Okay, I'll see you in a bit." Replacing the phone in his pocket he entered the van again, sitting behind the wheel and leaning to the side to check on Zoe. "The doctor says you should probably lie down just in case."

Zoe nodded, swinging her legs up onto the cot and shifting the cape so it formed a makeshift blanket. "Okay. That sounds like a plan." Looking up at him she asked, "is this going to be a long trip?"

"A little. It beats walking though, right?"

 

*****

 

At some point during the trip Zoe must have drifted off, because she found herself waking up just as the van came to a stop. Through the smoky rear windows she could see the tops of concrete walls, bordering a sky with scattered strands of clouds. As he - William, was it? - opened the back door, she climbed out out into a loading area for what looked like a store or warehouse of some kind. A double-lane paved road lead back behind the side of the building, out of view. Nearby she could hear the faint sounds of a city though it did, like so many things, seem -off- in a way she couldn't identify yet.

Zoe scanned the area. "Is this the back of the building?"

"Well," he hesitated, looking away for a second before turning back to her. "We can't exactly have you walking in the front looking like that."

"I guess not."

William headed for a double door, gesturing for Zoe to follow. The interior was industrial yet modern, perhaps excessively so, and as they entered a large elevator she noticed that the panel didn't have buttons, but rather a touch screen. He gave the screen a tap and it moved upwards with a quiet hum, the doors sliding open into a hallway with tiled floors and two-toned paneled walls decorated with carpets and framed artwork. It was reminiscent of an office at first, but it felt too lived-in and not the least bit cold or artificial. Part of Zoe wanted to describe it as "homey," of all things.

Despite this there had been a growing sense of alienation within her. At first she was content to believe that her situation, though abnormal, was merely due to her being out of place; that somehow she was cast or carried halfway across the globe to some forgotten eighteenth-century pagan enclave, that returning home was a matter of finding an American embassy in whatever country she was in, and that she had happened across someone who natively spoke the same language as her by mere chance. The few pieces of technology she had seen and heard, however, were too widespread, and too clean and practiced in their implementation to be new. This was a jump across time rather than space, and though she knew her savior had good intentions, it was obvious he was keeping something from her.

As they neared a set of sliding doors with a "CLINIC" sign above them, William gave a panel in their center a tap, and they parted into a sterile room. Zoe could make sense of most of its contents - four hospital beds with blank screens above their headboards; a rectangular, smooth-lined shelf with medicine within; a monitoring device on rollers - but the rest looked beyond anything she had seen. Some of it was scarcely identifiable as technology; a window in the front of one machine on table bore a milky, pale orange crystal ensconced in a collection of wires.

A woman stood from her seat beside a bed in the center of the room as they entered, nodding to Zoe. "Good day. I'm Doctor DuLac."

Zoe gaped. She was perhaps three or four inches shorter, an average woman's height, and while not notably endowed in her upper half she more than compensated for that with a more than generous backside and hips and a general aesthetic roundness. She filled out a vest, dress shirt, lab coat and tube skirt, and indeed, "filled" was the only verb that Zoe could use to describe the effect she had on her clothes. It was less hyperbole and more a statement of fact, as she wasn't solid, much less human: Her entire body was a translucent turquoise with a soft reflective sheen, legs merging together at the knees and flowing into a pool on the ground, hair a series of flat ribbons either brushed or moulded behind her ears and dangling back around her shoulder blades.

Prior to this Zoe had seen things - or people - like this existing entirely within fiction. They were imperfect, based entirely upon supposition and desire, and the rare attempts to render them as closely as possible to real life were impressive, but still lacking. Unknown to any of them was the sheer -uniqueness- one would have should it exist, and here, before Zoe, she saw that she was close to yet utterly unlike what they had tried. Few could have considered the subtle visual interplay between their environment and them, not merely -being- in but -existing- in the room, faint hues of colors and fragments of scenes reflected in their surface, and light itself refracting through their body. That their physical form was not a hard rule enforced by biology yet their clothing, unless specially constructed, would place its constraints upon them as they moved just as surely as sinew and bone would. Her eyes bore undeniable intelligence and, at the same time, no human traits save their shape; above and beyond what she was, she was an -other- to Zoe, and whether she had intended to or not, she had made herself an emissary to a woman who had long since accepted humanity's solitude.

She was beautiful. She was terrifying.

Zoe clutched the cloak shut with one hand, the room suddenly going frigid. She could feel her heart pounding and her legs trembling; they buckled, and the room grew dark and came down with them.


	3. Chapter 3

Zoe slowly came to in one of the beds in the clinic, the sheet shifting over her as she moved. This time she knew a little more about her circumstances, and despite her undignified entrance, at least her hosts were polite, whatever they were.

She reached up, rubbing her eyes. On the plus side, convincing them she wasn't dangerous was probably going to be easier. "Hello?" she called out. "Is anyone there?"

A few seconds later a friendly-sounding woman's voice replied from somewhere in the ceiling. Zoe recognized it as the woman - or woman analogue - she saw earlier. "Hello. How are you feeling?"

"Okay, I guess."

"You fainted. There were recent superficial cuts and scrapes across your limbs, chest, and abdomen that I treated."

She raised the sheet, inspecting herself. When she said "treated" she assumed they were bandaged, not gone entirely. One of the perks of technology powered by crystals in a box, she assumed.

"Was that burn on your right hand recent?"

"What burn?" Turning her hand towards herself, she noticed for the first time that her palm was discolored from scarring and the fingerprints were gone. It didn't hurt or impede her movement, Zoe noted, so it had to have happened a while ago. Long enough that she didn't remember it happening, except that this wasn't the sort of thing that happened to you and you forgot about. "Oh. No?"

"Your blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate are normal, so you're fine physically."

Physically, Zoe repeated to herself mentally.

"Do you know what day of the week this is?"

"Not... really."

"How about just the day?"

"No."

"Alright. Do you know what month it is?"

She mulled it over, running one finger up the bridge of her nose. The fact she had to think about it worried her. "I want to say June."

"How about the year?"

"Two thousand and seventeen."

"Do you know where you are?"

Time to throw a Hail Mary, she thought. "Earth. Third planet in a nine-planet system orbiting a yellow star. Ice caps in the polar regions, mostly temperate, with large desert and rainforest regions. Habitable atmosphere, currently supports seven billion and some-odd bipedial tool-using mammals across seven continents and one hundred and ninety countries. Civilization is in the first stages of space exploration and has constructed a semi-permanent manned orbital station for scientific study." A beat. "You think I'm crazy, don't you."

"That's not my area of expertise," she replied.

"But if it was."

After a second of silence she said, "no."

"Seriously?"

"Even if someone forgets where they are or falls under some sort of delusion, certain details about the world are too indelibly imprinted upon their memory to not be seen as normal. Your reaction to my presence was telling, which suggests to me that you had never seen a meta before. Similarly telling was your reaction to the clinic itself, suggesting you were unfamiliar with the technology therein. You made no claims to be sheltered from the world, instead stating that you came from a planet with a single dominant species of eight billion-"

"Seven."

"-seven billion which presumably resemble you and are still in the process of exploring space. As naive as it may seem, I have no reason to doubt that you are not from Elhygd, simply because the other possibilities are even less likely."

"So you believe that I'm from another world."

"Yes."

Zoe took a deep breath. "Okay. That kind of makes me feel better. Is there any way for me to get back home? Dimensional travel, wormholes, something like that?"

"This is unprecedented, actually. If it has happened before no one has made any reports of it."

"Of course." She stared up at the ceiling and sighed. "So. What's the plan? Turn me over to the government and have them use me to..." She gesticulated. "...advance their portal technology without drilling a hole to Hell in the process?"

"Assuming they believed your story. Which they wouldn't, as you have no evidence on hand save anecdotal and you're physiologically identical to any other human in the system."

"Okay, so, for all intents and purposes, to the people of this world I'm a..." She gestured again, searching for the right words. "...crazy naked hobo."

"I can fix two of those, at the very least. May I come in?"

"Well, it's your place, but I mean... yeah."

After a moment the doors opened again to reveal the doctor, carrying in her hands a folded shirt and pants and a coiled belt. Her movement had a flow to it that could only have been innate as she simply glided in, a single pseudopod emanating from beneath her skirt. The lack of expected motion or bobbing that normally came when people walked was a bit odd to Zoe, but she pushed it out of her mind.

"I just didn't want you fainting again," she said, passing the clothes to Zoe.

"You act like you don't normally have naked women falling down at your feet." Zoe smiled at the doctor up until the point when her brain caught up with what her mouth said, at which point the smile instantly faded, replaced with a blush that bordered on luminescent.

The doctor let out a quiet, bubbly laugh. "Well, I think I do well enough for myself." She leaned in, patting Zoe's hand as she lowered her voice to a breathy whisper. "My name is Aenor, by the way. My room is just down the hall if you ever wanted to... talk." Zoe nodded numbly, and she smiled, straightening up. "I'll give you some privacy to get changed," she said, turning. With that she glided away with a sway in her hips that Zoe knew was deliberate but was in no position to complain about.

 

*****

 

Zoe padded out of the clinic, turning halls until she ended up in an light-colored, open room with two dark couches, a few chairs and tables, and smoky, nearly black panes of glass across one side. The shirt and pants turned out to be a man's, still smelling faintly of their owner; judging from William's reaction as she entered, they must have been his.

"No one here is really your size," he said apologetically.

"That's okay." In light of what she said earlier, Zoe made every effort of not telling him he smelled good. "So I guess you're not turning me out just yet, huh?"

"The boss is away on a business trip, but Aenor called her and she's thinking over what to do. For the time being you're welcome to stay here."

"Well, for the time being I'm sort of stuck here." She twirled a finger in the air. "In a cosmic sense, I mean. I'm not even sure where 'here' is, honestly."

William gestured to the panes of glass. "Did you want to see? Assuming you weren't going to faint again."

"I think I'll be fine." She eyed the glass. "Is this a window?"

He nodded, approaching it and holding out a hand. A simple orange holographic display flickered into existence and he pressed one of the buttons, causing the glass to fade to transparency. "See?"

The room was several stories up, giving the window a wide panoramic view of the world beyond. Spread across the left half of Zoe's line of sight was a collection of concrete, glass, and steel spires, angled and ornate in their design, and adorned with billboards and neon signs. Separating them was a web of roads that grew more organized and grid-like as they continued to the right, the buildings rapidly growing shorter as they progressed into what appeared to be an industrial strip. There the development ended abruptly, bordered by a low wall by a few lone paved roads leading away from the city that turned to dirt, passing through a wide green field before heading into the forest that Zoe presumed she woke up in.

She leaned against the glass, taking it in bit by bit. "Goddamn," she breathed.

"Is it anything like where you came from?"

"Um." Zoe laughed nervously. "Kind of? It looks a little more... advanced, honestly, and there's a lot more trees. But it's sort of the same." She pushed herself away from the window. "So what's the catch? The world's controlled by a single corporate entity? Illegal drug use that opens up your mind to alternate realities? Mandatory euthanization once you turn thirty?"

"No."

"You sure? Nothing I should know about, like how God was banished from the planet and the Ecclesiarchy doesn't want Him back?"

"Not that I know of." A second later he asked, "God? Singular?"

"Yeah."

"There's only one god where you come from?"

"Well the actual nature of divinity is heavily contested, and there's a lot of interpretations, but I mean..." She trailed off before sighing, running her finger up the bridge of her nose. "Y'know what, I'm just gonna watch what I say for a bit just in case. Maybe if the next time you go out I could go with you, just to try and pick up on what the local culture is like?"

William nodded. "I think I'd be okay with that."


	4. Chapter 4

Zoe spent the rest of the day ill at ease. She wasn't prepared to go outside, and she definitely wasn't prepared to watch television or whatever passed for it, reasoning that the only thing worse than falling deep into an unknown world was finding out everything that was going wrong in it. Evening soon came, and for his part William proved to be a decent cook, preparing dinner for the both of them. Much to Zoe's relief something as mundane as steak and potatoes existed in the world, and to her further relief the steak was red in the center and brown on the outside, and most definitely not grey with yellowish fat.

Following dinner, William passed off to her a new-looking book that seemed to be science fiction. "Just to pass the time," he said.

"What's it about?" she asked.

"It's an alternate history where we colonized space but magic doesn't exist. The author really did his homework when it came to figuring out how it would be possible." He shrugged. "I thought maybe it would be familiar to you."

As Zoe soon discovered, the author did do his homework. Mostly. The rest seemed grounded in either an incomplete understanding of physics as she knew them, or a perfect understanding of physics that she didn't know. Most telling was how the technology was reliant on a material which produced an infinite amount of energy; the mention of it possessing a "killing field" made her believe it was uranium, but the description couldn't have been further from what she knew. Still, she learned a few things, or at least she learned that she would have to unlearn most of what she thought she knew.

As night came Zoe made herself comfortable on the couch, up until William informed her that he had already opened a cot into one of the corner rooms and gave her a T-shirt large enough for her to sleep in. Her first thought was to wonder just how tall the owner was; her second was to wonder if William wasn't worried about her. Her third was to wonder if the world was such that she needed to be worried over, a thought which went with her to bed and remained for at least an hour, keeping her wide awake.

Thus, her worries carried her to Doctor DuLac's room.

Zoe rapped her knuckle on the door frame. "Aenor? Is it alright if I come in?"

"By all means."

The door opened into a clean, neat-looking tiled room. Along one side was a desk with a laptop and a flat-screen television, beside which were a set of closet doors. On the other side was a dresser and a bookshelf which, judging from an exposed cover, was filled almost entirely with trashy romance novels. In the center of the room, with its short end against the wall, was either a fish tank with a padded bottom and rim or a small glass coffin. Inside it was Aenor, completely nude, submerged in a shallow layer of herself down to her hips and reading a medical journal, the cover of which spoke of advances in Orgone therapy.

Zoe averted her eyes. "Sorry, I didn't mean to walk in on you like that."

She looked up at her. "Why? Does nudity make you uncomfortable?"

"No, just, I- I didn't want to intrude if you were-"

"You're not intruding," Aenor said. "...and if it's any consolation, by humanoid physical standards I'm not anatomically correct."

Zoe looked at her. She wasn't wrong; Aenor didn't have any nipples or navel to speak of. Absolutely none of this changed the fact that she was still nude.

"Was there something you wanted?"

"I couldn't sleep. I was just worried about..." She trailed off, gesturing.

"Being in another world."

"Pretty much."

"Well," she began, putting a card in the magazine and setting it aside. "I can only assume that your world must be well-off, else you wouldn't be concerned about losing it."

"It wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either."

"I see. Would you like to take a seat?" She gestured to the chair, and Zoe entered the room and sat down as Aenor turned, resting her elbows on the edge of the tank. "No war? No conflicts?"

"No, there's been a bunch of wars. The last big one was about eighty years ago, but people are pretty much constantly fighting all over."

"I can imagine. A single planet with seven billion people must be crowded."

"It's getting there."

"All of a single species, no less."

"Well, there used to be another one, but they all died out... I want to say forty thousand years ago."

"What were they like?"

"Basically like humans, only a little shorter and hairier."

"So they weren't radically different."

"Not really. Scientists think that they were close enough to interbreed with us."

"That's not surprising," Aenor replied. "Enough of that goes on here."

"You mean between humans and..." Zoe paused. "I'm not really sure what the term is for, um... people like you."

"If you mean -like me- then it varies regionally, but the umbrella term for metamorphosed humanoids is 'demis.'"

"As in demi-human? Isn't that kind of... I dunno, implying that humans are the base species?"

"They are. Or were. Demis didn't exist until about two thousand years ago."

"Oh."

Aenor thought for a moment as a light smile appeared on her face. "But what about people like me? I know you said you're alone as a species, but what of us as a concept?"

"You mean transparent and fluid, right?"

"Amorphous semisolid, but that's semantics."

"Well, there's... as a concept, yeah."

"What do you think of them?"

Zoe thought for a moment, considering her words carefully. "Well, anthropomorphizing things is a pretty big aspect of human psychology. People have been attributing human thoughts and traits to non-human things about as long as they've been around, and since in fantasy settings where I'm from there's usually some sort of slime creature, it would stand to reason that someone would draw one in a humanoid form."

"That's interesting," Aenor said, still smiling, "but you're dodging my question. Perhaps I should rephrase: What do you think of me?"

Zoe opened her mouth, then closed it again, suddenly very aware of how everything else in the room should be looked at except for the attractive nude woman in front of her.

"I ask because you were fairly obviously flirting with me earlier today, and you've been trying overly hard to maintain eye contact this entire time."

She forced a smile, laughing nervously. "I, um... I do have some interests in what my world regards as fictional beings."

"Such as myself."

"Yes," she replied, blushing.

"Do you find me attractive?"

"Yes." Hastily she added, "but I mean, you've got a nice personality and physically you're attractive, not in the sense of what you're composed of but how it's built, and-"

Aenor, still smiling, rose up to her standing height as Zoe rambled. She didn't step over the edge of the tank so much as ooze over it, her body flowing up one side and spilling over the other as she moved. As she neared Zoe she leaned in and put a finger to the young woman's lips, silencing her. "Zoe."

Zoe's eyes went from Aenor's finger to her face.

"I understand this is all new to you, but in my professional opinion, you need to relax."

Aenor moved forward, lowering herself down onto Zoe's lap, spreading across her bare legs. Zoe inhaled sharply as she made contact; her body was thicker than honey, pleasantly cool and not the least bit sticky. It - she - didn't run down her legs so much as move of her own volition, surrounding her thighs and pooling in a thick layer beneath her. Aenor wrapped her arms around Zoe as she came in close, and after moment of hesitation Zoe responded in kind. She pressed her fingers into her back; Aenor's outer layer had a gelatin thickness, but with a bit of pressure it gave way to a softer inside.

Her gesture did not go unnoticed. "You really are curious, aren't you." Moving in, the doctor's lips met hers. They parted, and as her tongue entered Zoe's mouth there was the taste of pure, clean water. Aenor kissed her deeply, again and again, moving her hands up to Zoe's cheeks to cradle her head.

Eventually she pulled away, still smiling, and Zoe felt something cool and soft press against her between her legs. Breathing deeply, she spread her thighs, and let out a quiet gasp as Aenor pushed in, finger-like tendrils entering her. She reflexively tightened her grip on Aenor as they ran along her insides, brushing gently against her. A series of quiet moans were coaxed from her, and Aenor moved back in, kissing her again, surrounding her and holding her close.

In the end, Zoe didn't get much sleep at all that night.


	5. Chapter 5

Zoe didn't fall asleep so much as pass out that night, waking up later than expected and getting up to eat a breakfast of cornflakes and coffee, grateful that both existed in at least one other world. Midway through her second cup, however, she heard a faint rumbling coming from somewhere below her in the building. Her first instinct was to worry about it, but no alarms went off and no one seemed to panic, so she wrote it off as a natural occurrence.

As Zoe searched unsuccessfully for the dishwasher, William entered the kitchen, gesturing to a panel next to the sink. After she put her bowl and mug away he said, "the boss is coming up in a little while. Follow me."

She did as she was told, heading after him out of the kitchen and down the hall, walking past the elevator and through a set of double doors to a long room. In the center was a plain but well-made rectangular wooden table ringed with a dozen office chairs and sporting a cross-shaped device about a foot across that she hadn't seen before but assumed had something to do with teleconferencing. Probably involving holograms, she thought, and if it didn't it should. Waiting for her in the room standing beside the table was Aenor, who greeted Zoe with a light, polite bow of the head and, noting Zoe's sudden blush, smiled.

Some moments later the "boss" in question walked in: A redhead with a ponytail trailing down between her shoulder blades, light brown eyes, and a calm, focused expression, wearing cargo pants, a sweatshirt tied around her waist, and a skin-tight suit similar in pattern and design that she had seen William wearing, only in purple and black. Most striking was her height, or lack thereof, as she was barely over five feet tall; Zoe would have described her as "petite," though probably not to her face. Coming in a close second was her apparent age, which Zoe estimated to be maybe a year or two more than her own, if that. Young enough to make her wonder what she had been doing with her own life, at least.

The young woman silently regarded Zoe for a few seconds before turning to Aenor and asking, "...and you said she's from another world?"

"The other possibilities aren't likely," Aenor replied.

"Neither is this." She turned back to her. "Your name is Zoe, right? What's your last name."

Zoe opened her mouth to reply, then closed it, confused. "I'm not actually sure. I -did- have one, but I don't remember it."

To Aenor, the boss asked, "you're sure it isn't amnesia?"

"I remember who I am," Zoe said, "and most of where I'm from, and that's not here, whatever you call this planet."

"Eard."

"Eard, right. I just woke up completely naked, buried in some old underground ruin. I'd like to get back home, but I don't know how."

"...and I'd like to help you, but we're not in the business of taking in strays, regardless of how strange their circumstances are."

"Wait a-"

"But there are homeless shelters which can-"

"-you're just gonna -toss me out- and-"

"-which can provide shelter and food for-"

"-part of 'I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT YOUR-"

"-trying to run a -business- and not-"

"IF I MAY INTERRUPT," Aenor politely bellowed. The two young women fell silent, turning to look at the doctor. "Thank you. Kathy, I understand your objections, but these are extremely strange circumstances. Ordinarily the destitute would be familiar with the world around them and possess some degree of practical knowledge which could be put towards their employment. She, however, has none of that, as well as the disadvantage of coming from a more primitive era."

"How primitive?" Kathy asked.

Aenor looked at Zoe, and after pausing to collect her thoughts Zoe replied, "combustion engines, a basic semi-permanent manned space station, supersonic air travel, uh... global digital networks, nuclear weapons... I don't know how much further ahead you are, but robots could probably do the things I went to college for." She paused. "Wait, do you have sentient robots here? If that sounded racist I didn't mean it that way, I swear."

A look of concern crossed Kathy's face. "That's kind of old."

"Furthermore," Aenor continued, "I'm intrigued by her circumstances. As this organization has a system-wide reach, we're in a better position than most to uncover potential details about her. Besides," she added with a reassuring smile, "I've not known her long but she has grown on me."

For reasons unknown, the word 'paramour' came to the forefront of Zoe's mind. Drawing upon her fine command of language, she said nothing.

"I agree with Aenor," William said. "I wouldn't feel comfortable just leaving her alone."

Kathy bowed her head in silence for a few moments before looking up at Zoe. She stared at her, brow furrowed, before rolling her eyes. Striding out of the room, she pointed to Aenor and William in turn. "Both of you are paying for her."

Zoe trailed a few steps after her, hands clasped. "I -swear- I will pay you back for this."

She turned, walking backwards. "No," she replied, gesturing with a finger. "Worry about paying -them- back."

 

*****

 

In a search for fitting clothes, William took Zoe a short drive across the city to an open-air mall. Zoe wasn't exactly sure how to describe Sanct Ainsley at first, only coming up with "cyberpunk but not miserable." It did have the advanced technology and dense population, but it was a density that came from people wanting to be there and the city growing organically, rather than too many citizens being crammed into haphazardly-arranged buildings, to say nothing of the fact that it had entirely too many trees to be cyberpunk - which is to say, it had trees. That wasn't even getting into how the city itself bordered an absolutely massive tract of forests. Part of her couldn't help but feel that her difficulty in describing it was due to the lack of media she consumed featuring visions of the near future that weren't inherently and deeply pessimistic.

The population itself was diverse, to say the least. It was mostly human, and partially something else. Aenor had said that they were called "demis," a word that Zoe was glad she knew because the term she did know for them - "monster boys and girls" - was probably offensive as all hell. Having only seen people like them drawn, or at best the subject of manipulated photos, she was struck by the new reality of it: The colors were more muted and natural, the patterns more detailed. Hair rested and draped around feline and canine ears and horns, scales blended seamlessly into skin, and tails and wings moved with the rest of their owners' body language. The overall effect was an organic integration of the normal and the fantastic, so ordinary to the residents that they simply concluded that the young woman being escorted by the young man was gawking because she was an out-of-towner in a national sense rather than a dimensional one.

"So how are you holding up?" William asked.

"It's a little overwhelming, but I'm fine."

"Better than the first time?" he replied with a smile.

"I'm still conscious, so yeah."

William initially wasn't sure of how Zoe dressed, but after five or ten minutes in a chain store he concluded that it involved one part comfort and who knew how many parts of frugality bordering on cheapness. She had opted for about eight sets of t-shirts and button-up blouses along with an equal amount of underwear and three pairs of jeans, "just in case one gets dirty."

"Don't you wear bras?" he asked.

"No, I wore..." She trailed off, lowering her gaze. Her eyes unfocused for a bit as she stared off silently at some unseen, distant point, and just as William was about to ask if she was alright she snapped out of it, laughing nervously. "Oh, I guess I must've, huh?"

"-Are- you feeling okay?"

"Yeah, I just had a brain fart or something. Let's swing back to the underwear and-"

Zoe stopped in mid-turn and mid-sentence as someone walked down the aisle nearby. She was a lop-eared brunette in her late thirties, which in and of itself wasn't terribly unusual. What was unusual was how radically, massively overstuffed her top was, filled as it was with two soft mounds of flesh that rivaled volleyballs in their size and shape. As she stared she saw no signs of the woman being impeded by what had to have been a remarkable weight, the cloth stretched across her wobbling curves.

She gently nudged William, inclining her head towards the woman as she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Look at that."

He craned his head up, glancing around. "Look at what?"

Zoe pulled him down. "Don't stare!" she hissed, staring. "Look at her!"

"Who? Oh, her."

"'Oh, her?' Did you not see how -huge- she was?"

He gave her a curious look. "Is that not normal where you come from?"

"Are you kidding me? Even half that size is considered stupidly big. What do you -eat- here?"

"Did -you- want to be like that?"

Zoe's mouth opened and worked wordlessly for a second as she cycled through shock, outrage, and red-cheeked embarrassment. Eventually she said, "okay, fine, let me rephrase that: Do people here normally grow up to be that size?"

"Oh, no, definitely not."

"Is it implants?"

"What?"

"It's not implants, then. Okay. You're going to need to explain to me what's going on and how that's possible."

After a moment of thought William replied, "I... think I know what you're asking, now. But maybe we should have this conversation somewhere more private."

 

*****

 

"Somewhere more private" turned out to be a secluded booth in a restaurant. William had ordered a hot sandwich and Zoe, unfamiliar with fully half the names of food on the menu, had asked him to order for her, receiving a plate of french fries and sausage covered in a spicy tomato sauce. It wasn't the most ordinary thing she had eaten, but at least it couldn't be turned into a gun that fired teeth.

"So," she began, gesturing with a fry. "Giant boobs."

"Right. There's a lot to it, though." William thought for a second. "Well, about two thousand years ago, the world sort of ended."

"...I was not expecting this to be part of the explanation." Biting into the fry she added, "you're doing really good for being post-apocalyptic, though. I can't even tell."

"Thanks."

"So what happened?"

"The last civilization was far more advanced than we were when it came to magic and, near as anyone can tell, they tried to summon a god. Nobody's really sure what happened after that - if it died in the process or came out wrong or just got angry - but everything was wiped out. The world was effectively sent back to the bronze age and people were changed."

Gears turned in Zoe's head. "When you say 'changed,' do you mean that they were turned into demis?"

William nodded. "A lot of the planet is still covered in leftover magical residue from the summoning, and any plants and animals in the area tend to change unpredictably. Governments have official terms for them but most people just call them 'Wild Zones.'"

"So it's magical radiation."

"Radiation?"

"Oh. Uh, magic killing fields."

"Something like that. In any case, scientists and thaumaturgists started studying the Zones and the patterns of the changes and figured out how to trigger controlled transformations."

"What kind of transformations are we talking about?" Zoe asked.

William shrugged. "Anything, I suppose."

"Anything," she repeated. "Like bigger boobs?"

"Yeah."

"Bigger butt?"

"Yeah."

"Latex dragon pool toy?"

"Sure."

She gave him a look. "Okay, now I'm pretty sure you're not listening to me."

"I'm listening."

"What did I just say?"

"'Latex dragon pool toy.'"

"...and you're implying that it's possible."

"Yeah," he replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

After a long silence Zoe picked up her drink. "Well," she said to herself. "This place just got a lot more interesting."


	6. Chapter 6

Zoe stirred her drink with the straw, pondering recent discoveries. "Magic" and "highly advanced technology" were certainly used as excuses enough when it came to fiction that treated the human form with a degree of malleability, but the idea that people could study mutagenic god-energy, isolate and extrapolate its effects on people, then reproduce it to change themselves at will was both impressive and demonstrative of the kind of forces at work. Although, she thought, it wasn't too far away from scientists from her world studying jellyfish and using to further Alzheimer's research. It just involved forces nobody back home knew anything about.

"Is it common?" she asked. "Actually, wait, what's the term is for changing yourself?"

"Back before people could control it," William replied, "there wasn't specific terms for kinds of transformations, so they just said that people had been afflicted. Once they learned how to control it the term sort of stuck. But, yes, it's common."

"Okay." Under her breath Zoe added, "not the most positive term, but whatever." Returning to a normal speaking voice, she continued. "Is, uh, afflicting yourself looked down upon, or...?"

He shook his head. "Nobody really gets upset about it, I suppose."

"Just as long as you're not like, blocking traffic or something." After a second of thought her expression brightened. "Oh, I see."

"See what?"

"-That's- the problem, isn't it? Society is still flush with the fruits of its golden age, and it's begun its slow decline due to hedonistic excess."

William shook his head again.

"Oh. Damn. Thought I was on to something."

 

*****

 

"So, could you show me how it works?"

William assumed that Zoe was still curious about afflictions, so hearing her ask that evening didn't come as a surprise. Still, he wasn't prepared for it. "I suppose, but I don't really use any of the more dramatic ones, and it might be a little too, uh... personally intimate for you."

"Oh." Zoe gave a light shrug. "Well, if you're okay with it then I am. I mean you are really sweet and good looking, and..." She rubbed her arm, blushing slightly. "...well, I'm not really a stranger to personal intimacy myself." As she raised her eyes again to meet his, she noticed a faint hint of red in his cheeks.

"Oh. Well. Okay, but if you start having problems then just say something. I understand that it's something that never existed where you came from, so it might be strange for you. People probably didn't think about changing their bodies into something different."

"Holy shit that is the most incorrect thing I have heard since I got here," Zoe didn't say.

"Are you ready now?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure."

He nodded and, taking her hand in his, lead him through the floor to his room. It was quite a bit larger than Aenor's, even taking into account the need for a bed. The essentials were there - a closet, cabinets, a desk with a computer - but in addition to that was a small refrigerator, a television with a half-filled rack of whatever this world's equivalent of DVDs was beside it, and a modestly-sized bookshelf filled with books. It hadn't been long, but Zoe couldn't help but feel a pang of homesickness when she saw it.

As the door closed behind them William continued on to his bedside before stripping off his shirt. "This tends to get in the way."

Zoe assumed he meant his shirt got in the way of something else and not peoples' view of his chest, but she chose to believe otherwise.

Dropping it, he picked up an object from his dresser, a small rectangular plastic container about the size of a tin of mints. He rolled his thumb across a dial on its top, and a small rectangular tab of thin paper slid out. Pointing to the tab, he said, "all the chemicals and enchantments are on this. You just put it on your tongue-" He demonstrated before putting the container back. "...and the affliction takes its course."

"Oh." A beat. "So are there sparkles, or..." She gesticulated. "How long does it take?"

"It varies, but this one kicks in pretty quick." He gestured to his stomach; Zoe noted that his navel was smaller, perfectly circular, and deeper. "See?"

"I guess you were right when you said you didn't use the dramatic ones."

He laughed, turning. "True," he said, opening the top dresser drawer. "Plus I usually need this." He turned back with an odd-looking device in one hand: It was a moderately-sized cylinder of black plastic with a handle on the side, looking not entirely unlike a very large coffee mug. Atop the handle was a grey button, and coiled up beneath it was a length of flexible hose ending in a nozzle.

The situation clicked in Zoe's head, and she was suddenly overcome with the sense of apprehension that came with someone else unknowingly touching upon something deep and intimate about ones own self. She fought down a cocktail of emotions - embarrassment, excitement, shock - not really listening to what he was saying, just watching as he laid down and plugged the nozzle into his navel with casual, practiced ease. A part of her was almost waiting for him to step back and laugh it off as a joke, up until she heard a quiet hiss, and his abs suddenly lost definition as they rose up in a low curve.

"See?" William said. "It's nothing dramatic." He clicked the button on the device again, and he filled out further. "You're not afraid, are you?"

She shook herself out of her daze. "No!" she exclaimed. Calming herself she added, "no, no, definitely not.  
I..." She reached out, then hesitated. "  
Is it... can I touch you?"

"Okay," he replied, with a small gesture of his free hand.

Leaning over, Zoe touched him with two fingers. Despite the obvious change that took place his skin felt normal, warm and soft, but as she gently pressed down there was a give to him, far less firm than fat. The realness was achingly familiar to her; she knew it wasn't possible where she came from, not knowing if it was a product of her jumbled memory or simply wanting it bad enough and wondering to oneself again and again what it would be like.

She ran his hands over William's belly as he slowly clicked the button, feeling him stretch and grow between her fingers with each pulse of air. As she watched his stomach rose up into a high bulge before beginning to swell outward ever so slightly, gaining roundness with each pump. The experience was brief - too brief - but when he stopped he had grown to the size of a beach ball, his body looming over itself. As she looked back at William her eyes passed over his chest, and she could see that his pectorals had begun to puff up.

"It's like that," he said, as if that explained everything.

Zoe was beyond the point of needing or wanting explanations. All she knew or cared about was that it was possible. She lifted her hands off of him, trying to act as natural as possible in a situation that was anything but. "So it's just this?"

"People can get a lot bigger than this, but it... kind of interferes with some things."

Bigger. The word stuck in her mind like a splinter, and she fought down a wave of excitement as the possibilities rolled in her head. She took a step back, acting as casually as she could muster. "Thanks, William."

"Billy."

"Thanks, Billy." She took another step towards the door. "This's been... educational, I guess. I just... I need some time to think about it."

That night, Zoe spent quite a bit of time thinking about it. Face-down in her pillow, to muffle how loudly she thought.


	7. Chapter 7

It was some days after her visitation with William that Zoe woke to the smell of frying bacon. The scent was welcome, but at the same time unusual, as no one else had done much in the way of cooking, least of all in the morning. So, driven by curiosity, she got out of bed, got dressed, and headed for the kitchen.

The chef was tall - at least a head higher than Zoe by her estimation - with the tips of the catlike ears atop her head reaching the seven foot mark. Her skin was the color of chocolate, and the hair and fur on her ears were both straight and black; while the former was not terribly short, it was still short enough that Zoe could tell she didn't have human ears on the sides of her head, so that answered that, she supposed. She wore a sports bra, sweats, and running sneakers, giving a clear view of her well-toned arms and back. As Zoe stood there, the young woman's ears twitched and she looked over her shoulder at Zoe with green, feline eyes, and an expression that spoke of a total lack of concern with strangers in her kitchen. "Morning. Zoe, right?"

Zoe shifted. "Yeah."

"The out-of-towner?"

"That's one way of putting it."

"Claire Mullins. One of the pilots. You met Weiss?"

"Who?"

"Kathy. Short." She gestured with a spatula in one hand before turning her attention back to the griddle. "Runs the place."

"Oh, yeah. Aenor and Bi- William convinced her I could stay."

Claire nodded. "We're doing fine. Don't let her tell you otherwise."

"Okay, but I mean, it's still one more person."

She nodded again, fiddling with a dial. "You worried?"

"A little."

They lapsed into silence for a few seconds as Claire finished up, stacking pancakes and strips of bacon onto a plate in her off hand. As she turned, Zoe noted that while she took some bodily matters into her own hands, nature was more than generous to her. She set her plate down on the table next to a glass of orange juice; now aware of her own hunger, Zoe set about fixing herself a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee before sitting down across from Claire.

About a quarter of the way into her meal Claire asked, "what did you do before coming here?"

"Retail, data entry, database work. Windows XP and 7, though that probably doesn't mean anything to you."

She gave a light shake of her head. "Computers?"

"Yeah, probably outdated stuff, which is..." She laughed humorlessly. "...pretty ironic, all things considered." In response to Claire's curious look, Zoe continued. "You read fiction?"

"A little." She forked a cut of pancakes into her mouth.

"Back home, in another country, there's something called 'light novels,' which is just another kind of young adult fiction, and a lot of them are a genre they call 'isekai,' which is just-" She gestured. "-and stop me if you've heard this one, but it's basically where someone from the real world falls into a fantasy world."

Claire nodded.

"Relatively speaking, that is. But the thing is, there were -so many people- writing stories like that and they were so alike that the companies running contests said they weren't accepting them anymore. The main characters were all variations on 'ordinary middle-class person,' usually a high school student, and all the settings were feudal eras with magic - which we don't have - and the main character stands out because they know how to make gunpowder or realize that the ancient technology is just really old military hardware or something. Because he's from modern times he knows something everyone else doesn't, basically, or if they can't think of anything he just has some bullshit special power."

"Okay."

"So the one time that it actually happens, not only do I end up in the future, relative to what I know, but it's a future where forces are at work that were completely nonexistent where I came from." Zoe gestured helplessly. "I have nothing."

"You're sure you're ordinary," she said, taking a drink of orange juice.

She blinked. "I think so. Aenor checked me out; if there's some sort of magic gene that I have she didn't say anything about it."

"It's all practice, but that's fine."

They lapsed into silence for a few moments as they ate. As they finished up Claire paused, setting her knife and fork down on her plate before pushing it aside and resting her right elbow on the table, hand extended towards Zoe.

It took a few seconds before Zoe caught on. "Oh. I'm left-handed."

She gave a light shrug, switching arms. Reaching out, Zoe took her hand in hers and, mustering all her strength, pushed against it. Straining, she grit her teeth, grabbing the edge of her free hand for leverage, accomplishing very little of note before pulling away, gasping. After a moment of thought Claire nodded to herself, standing up and gesturing for Zoe to follow. She did as she was told, following her down the halls and into the elevator. Claire pressed a button marked "Hangar," and the elevator slid into motion.

"You need to keep yourself occupied or else you get depressed," Claire said. It was as much a question as an explanation.

"Yeah."

"A lot of people are like that."

The elevator eventually came to a stop, opening into a empty, tiled antechamber with thick sliding metal doors at the far end. Claire casually strode forward with Zoe at her heels, pressing a button on a panel beside the doors. They slid open with the hiss of hydraulics, and she stepped to one side, gesturing for Zoe to enter.

She stepped out onto metal catwalk positioned near the ceiling, overlooking a large hangar. Most of it wasn't out of the ordinary - workers, forklifts, crates, and assorted machinery - but there were things in it that gave Zoe pause before prompting her to let out a surprised oath, leaning over the railing for a better look to such a dangerous degree that Claire grabbed hold of the back of her jeans to prevent her fall.

They were humanoid and, by Zoe's estimation, about thirty feet tall. The exteriors were armored but not overly so, with aerodynamic curves and rounded edges defining most of their shape. The rest were flatter surfaces and right angles which, combined with the segmented joints, suggested to her that their human shape was not the only one; the pointed nose cone pointing down upon their chests only served as further implication. The heads were long and narrow, tapering slightly at the front, with an opaque visor around their front halves and an antenna sloping backwards. All were painted in a rough digital pattern in shades of pale sky blues, with a black, purple, and red shield-shaped emblem on their shoulders.

Zoe pointed at them with one hand, gaping back at Claire. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE?!"

"GRs," Claire replied, pulling her fully back onto the catwalk.

"THEY'RE GIANT ROBOTS!"

"Yes."

"YOU HAVE GIANT ROBOTS HERE!"

"Yes," she repeated, as if it were obvious.

"William said you were pilots but I thought it was just like, planes or jets, not GIANT ROBOTS." She paused to consider her next words. "OH MY GOD."

As Zoe continued to boggle one of the workmen approached them. "Good morning, Miss Mullins. That a friend of yours?"

Claire guided Zoe away from the railing with one arm, positioning her between herself and the workman. "This is Zoe. Had some rough times. Homeless, staying here. Wanted to pay us back." It took Zoe a second to realize what was going on. "Did some work in databases, data entry, old OSes though. Might need some time to get accustomed to what we have here."

The workman turned his attention to Zoe, who nodded and waved politely. After a few seconds of thought he said, "well, we can always find some place to fit her." He gestured. "Come on."

As he walked away, Zoe looked back at Claire. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"...thanks."

"No problem."


	8. Chapter 8

Zoe rapped her knuckles on the door frame, leaning into the office. "Javier told me to tell you that the spools of artificial muscle fiber are in the reels," she said, "and the flechette shells are loaded into the storage racks."

The man at the desk, heavy-set and in his mid-forties, looked up from the screen at her. "Did he check the batteries?"

"He said a few of the crystals needed to soak for a day or two." She wasn't sure what that meant, but if there was one thing she could do, it was passing on messages and lifting.

"They were about due," he replied. "Well, all that's left is running diagnostics. We'll probably need you again in a couple of days." Zoe nodded in response, but as she went to leave he spoke again. "Oh, one more thing." He gestured to the table beside the door. "A magazine came in for Miss Weiss but it was delivered down here. Could you bring it up with you?"

Zoe picked it up and inspected the cover; it looked like an arms and ammo magazine, assuming one was selling to people who owned giant robots. "Will do. See you when I see you."

 

*****

 

Zoe rapped her knuckles on on the door leading to Kathy's room. "It's Zoe. You have a delivery."

"Enter."

It was the first time she had seen the inside of Kathy's room, and she wasn't surprised to learn that it was neat and orderly, looking as much like an office as it did a bedroom. There were a few decorations - two framed diplomas, a small shelf of dolls, a display of trinkets - and, resting on her desk, an irregularly-shaped splinter of metal in a glass case, but aside from that the room was rather utilitarian. Kathy herself was busy typing away on her computer, barely giving Zoe any notice.

"There was a magazine for you downstairs," Zoe said.

"Just leave it on the desk," Kathy said. As Zoe entered and set it down, she gestured to another chair on the side of the desk, adding, "oh, and sit down."

She did as she was told, taking a seat and waiting patiently as Kathy continued to work. After a moment Kathy glanced at her out of the corner of her eye before pausing, and opening up one of the desk's cabinets on her far side. Reaching in, she produced a conical bottle of burgundy liquid with a plastic cap. Looping her finger in a ring on the top she gave it a tug, pulling a strip of plastic free with a snap, and a thin rime of frost formed on the outside of the bottle. Passing it off to her other hand, she reached over, setting it down near Zoe, who regarded it with interest before picking it up and removing the cap.

"Thanks," Zoe said.

"Claire tells me you've been working in the GR hangar."

"Yeah, it was her idea." She took a sip of the drink, testing its flavor. It was lightly sweet with a fruit taste she vaguely recognized. Pomegranate, maybe. Tipping it back, she drank more deeply before lowering it again. "It's mostly heavy lifting but I'm picking up little bits and pieces of the system they use to keep track of everything."

Kathy nodded but said nothing as she continued to type. The pause in conversation lapsed into a pregnant silence as Zoe took another drink before setting the bottle down.

"I mean," she continued, "I've been trying to keep busy."

She abruptly stopped typing, clicking for a few seconds with her mouse before pushing away from the keyboard. "You probably don't mean that in a euphemistic sense."

Zoe found herself suddenly uncomfortable, and she rolled her shoulders, adjusting her sleeves.

"I know Aenor and William are taking care of you," Kathy said, swiveling her chair to face her, "but you have some interesting ways of paying them back."

All at once her sports bra felt emptier, her sneakers looser. The shoulder of her blouse slid off her shoulder and she pulled it back into place, only for the other to slip free. "I- I can explain." She looked down at her hands as they disappeared into her sleeves, then up at Kathy as her line of sight crept downward. "What's happening? What did you do to me?"

"You did it to yourself," she replied, gesturing to the half-empty bottle. "As for things you've done to others, you've had sex twice with Aenor and spent a great deal of time in private with William."

"It's not your business to-" she began lamely. Her legs dangled off the edge of the chair as her clothing covered her like a shroud.

"You're a guest, and I've let you stay. It is -exactly- my business to know what you've been up to."

Zoe struggled to climb out of her underwear and jeans, standing in a vain attempt to get eye-to-eye with Kathy despite her change in size. She held her T-shirt up from the inside with both hands, the cloth draped over her like a full-body gown. Though she wasn't of the mindset to be aware of it at the time, the green bracelet around her wrist had shrunk to fit her perfectly.

"Maybe that's normal where you're from, I don't know." Standing, she pulled the shirt off of Zoe, who turned a deep red as she covered herself with both hands. "Oh, so you draw the line at exhibitionism. That's good to know."

"I'm not the weird pervert who shrank someone to two feet tall!" she shot back.

A brief flicker of a frown crossed Kathy's face.

"Yeah, you heard me. You are a -gigantic hypocrite-."

"You don't know anything about me."

"I know you're about my age, but you have -two- college degrees, can -pilot a giant robot-, and run your own business. I haven't seen any pictures of your family in here, so you either don't have one or don't care to remember them. Either way you did all of this yourself."

After a second of silence she said, with a small amount of pride in her voice, "I did."

"So you're a self-made overachiever who probably never spent a day actually having fun. Which makes those-" She pointed across the room at the shelf of dolls. "-seem out of place."

"As if you've never collected anything," Kathy retorted.

"So you just decided one day to start collecting dolls."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"As if I need a reason."

"But you also have -shrinking potions- in your desk. Ones that reduce people to the size of the dolls."

She folded her arms across her chest. "What are you implying, exactly?"

"I'm implying that you're projecting SUPER HARD onto those dolls. You want to be all playful and enjoy yourself but you're too scared-"

"I," she began, unfolding her arms, "am -not- scared."

"...and you're projecting your own deviancy onto me because you're ashamed of it, because you think it makes you weak."

They lapsed into silence as they stared at each other defiantly and, after a long while, Kathy finally broke the silence. "What do you want?"

"I want you to stop being so uptight. Compared to my world there's way more weird sex things, so you being like this is really weird. I mean, I'm not really super into this, but I can give it a shot."

A faint tinge of red crossed Kathy's cheeks as she thought for a moment. She nodded, then gently put both hands around Zoe's waist before effortlessly picking her up. Zoe let out a quiet yelp, kicking her legs before being deposited unharmed on Kathy's bed. Circling around, Kathy headed for her closet, pulling the door aside before fishing around in a box on a shelf. "The others don't need to know about this."

"That's fine, just... ask next time, okay?"

She paused, slowly nodding. "I don't have any experience with this. I'm sorry." Turning, she underhanded tossed a handful of small clothes at Zoe, catching her square in the face.

Zoe fought with the cloth for a second before holding it out at arm's length, getting a better look at it. "A maid's uniform?" she scoffed. "I haven't worn a dress since middle school."

"Dolls wear dresses."

Zoe pointed. "See, now you're getting into it."

Kathy was trying her best to remain stone-faced, but Zoe could see the carefully muted interest in her eyes as she watched her dress. Thigh-high black stockings and black Mary Janes, a frilled black and white dress, a white headdress, and a skirt that barely covered her. When she finished she stood, blushing, adjusting the skirt. The back began to ride up, and she tugged down on it, causing the front to lift up further than she'd like. Pulling down on the front had the opposite effect, and she gave up, holding both sides down with either hand. It wouldn't have been half as bad were it not for a crucial omission.

"Uh, goshujin-sama? I think you forgot something."

"Have I?" She gently scooped her up with one hand, trailing the index finger of the other down her body. "Because it seems..." Her finger brushed aside her skirt. "...you have everything..." She gently pressed against the cleft of her thighs, tracing little circles between Zoe's legs. "...you need."

Between quiet gasps, Zoe squeaked, "never mind."


	9. Chapter 9

Zoe blinked, looking down at the stack of paper in Javier's hand. "What's this?"

"We heard about how you don't have a thing to your name," Javier said, "so we passed a hat around."

"I, I," she stammered, taken aback, "I can't accept this."

"No, it's fine. Besides, you work off the payroll." He offered it to her. "Just think of this as your salary."

She accepted it, though she felt strange about it, counting and inspecting it in the elevator as she headed back to ground level. It was three thousand denari, however much that was, in an assortment of hundred, fifty, twenty and ten-denari denominations. The bills were of modern design, bore the name of the Federal Union of Randburg, and the backs were decorated with portraits of buildings presumably of governmental or historical importance. By her estimation they wouldn't have looked too out of place amongst modern European currency.

The day was still early and the weather clear so, taking the money, she headed out to explore. While most of Sanct Ainsley was unknown, she had a rough idea of where some places were thanks to William, so she assumed the best course of action would be to start where she had been and work her way outward. A convenience store provided a map at little cost, and after marking the location of her erstwhile home - just in case - she set about getting acquainted with her surroundings.

Some time into her journey she happened across what she thought was a small park with a pool of water in the middle but, upon approaching it, found an old-looking building made out of pale red and white stone bricks, with steps leading up to a series of arches and, behind them, wide wooden doors. Above one of the arches was a pointed symbol that she recognized from the chapel-like room she found underground, and she concluded that it was a church or temple of some kind. She decided to investigate, wondering if anything had changed in the past couple centuries due to dead gods.

The interior was a single large, rectangular room ending in a semicircle with a stone altar on a raised dais, doors on the sides leading off to parts unknown. The floor was polished stone with wooden benches on either side along the walls and an open center. Zoe wondered where people sat for mass before realizing that they either sat on the floor or didn't need to because no mass was held. Judging from the man in black near the entrance the faith had priests or the equivalent thereof. This one in particular had deep red skin, golden eyes, and two horns twisting up from the sides of his forehead. Zoe felt she was the only person on the planet to appreciate the irony.

She gave the man a nod and a gesture as she passed by, continuing on past the altar and stopping in front of the statues for a better look. They were deliberately simple human figures with no real defining features, wearing robes and other articles of clothing old enough to have taken a trip twice through history. One of the spots, second from the right, was empty. From what William said, the statue that would have been there either died or cursed the planet; in either case, there was reason for its absence.

On the walls beneath the statues was writing etched in stone plaques. She expected their names, finding only their titles: "The Open Guiding Hand," "The Rider Upon the Field," "The Wheel of Change," "The Five Stars." Many of the titles were euphemistic or relied on greater knowledge of the world to be understood, and if the gods had domains or spheres of influence she could only guess vaguely at what they were. Zoe recalled something about true names with regards to magic back home, how knowing them gave someone power over something else. Her memory was hazy - not really a surprise - but she did know it was kind of a big deal in Judaism that no one use God's true name.

Her attention was drawn back to the absent god's spot. What she had seen underground in that complex was roughly equivalent to the eighteenth century back home, so they were probably knowledgeable enough about natural - and supernatural - phenomena to describe it as such and not purely as the work of the gods. Thus, she reasoned, they grasped most of what they were doing. This would mean, however, that what William said was true: A god came through, triggering the apocalypse, and enough people responsible or connected to it had survived to clearly know the reasons behind it. The thought did occur to her that they could have been amazingly, staggeringly wrong about what they were calling forth and something equally -wrong- was pulled through, but even then, it still implicated the existence of a force beyond humans.

Zoe could barely imagine the impact it would have had on the world, even beyond the Wild Zones. Regardless of whether it lived or died, people would have realized at some point that they brought harm upon one of the forces responsible for their existence. She was sure the experience changed the faith between then and now, but the scope of the changes was beyond her. Even calling it "faith" was incorrect, as it was no longer belief without proof.

All things being equal, she thought, would that mean that with sufficient power, one could tear open a hole to Heaven and pull Him through? Nine billion names of God written in lines of code, golden crosses melted to line circuit boards, nuclear reactors with uranium rods submerged in blessed heavy water, particle colliders running in parallel to generate black holes, bending time-space and making a direct connection between the material and the divine? What would you even -do- once He came through, anyway? Have Him fix everything? Put Him on trial like a negligent parent? Ask Him why he keeps changing his mind every couple of hundred years?

But something of the reverse did happen, where she found herself in strange gods' land. She was a guest in their creation, though her own creation was another god's doing. The thought did occur to her that perhaps, what with there being evidence, their worship - or at least acknowledgement - was in order. However, Zoe was, admittedly, not the most pious person, and the world seemed little different than her own with regards to issues of evil, whether or not it was indeed the best of all possible worlds, free will, and so on. As sad as one's possible death or injury was, it still proved that they were fallible on at least some level, and the idea of worshiping something as prone to making mistakes as she was didn't sit well with her.

After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Zoe came to the conclusion that not much had changed: If they existed and could see into her heart, they would know that her choices were the result of free will and reason either granted to her by another god - or gods - or developed to survive on another planet in another reality, just as surely as anyone else on -this- planet. Thus, it would be unfair for her to be punished for choosing wrongly by the individuals who gave her the ability to choose, or the local equivalents thereof. Assuming that the same problems of evil, the afterlife, divine reward or punishment, and free will still existed in similar forms here as they did back home, which they may not have, and anyway, she was sort of a special case, so it hardly mattered in the long term. Or maybe the short term, depending on how you looked at it.

At the foot of each of the statues - and the empty spot - were wide, shallow silver dishes containing folded papers and money. The dish of the dead god was empty; she peeled off a twenty dinari bill and left it as an offering before leaving. She didn't know anything about the god in question, but it only felt right.


	10. Chapter 10

The term, Zoe believed, was "the duality of man."

An hour later and some distance from the temple, she found herself in what was unmistakably the city's red light district. It wasn't run-down or dirty, but it was unmistakably a street dedicated to brothels, sex shops, and discrete hotels, advertising themselves with varying degrees of tastefulness and whatever luminescent gas passed for neon in this world. The street itself was less a street and more a wide sidewalk, blocked off with concrete pillars with an underground parking lot near the entrance. She never asked where the others in the building purchased their transformative tonics and tabs, but if she had to guess, this would be one place. She had never been somewhere like this, per se, but she did vaguely recall being in an adult novelty store at some point. It had to have been recently, relatively speaking, because she couldn't remember it as well.

As she passed by one of the buildings she spotted a blonde woman, or an analogue thereof, in a leather jacket, crop top, and jean shorts. She was very clearly a robot - gynoid, Zoe corrected herself - with black seams along her joints, a cream-colored exterior, and deep copper eyes. As their eyes met, she smiled coquettishly. "Hey there, cutie. Looking for a good time?"

"I, uh," Zoe stammered, taken aback. "I was gonna, gonna pick up something."

She pouted. "Can't it wait?"

"I probably can't pay for you anyway."

"I'm sure we can work something out that's... affordable." Slyly, she added, "I can cut you a deal if you want to help me test out some new attachments."

Despite having access to the Internet back home, it was being on Eard that made Zoe realize that there were fewer and fewer things that she wasn't into. "I'm sorry, I have to decline. Were you- and sorry if if this sounds rude, but were you built to be a prostitute?"

There was a shift in her demeanor and posture as she took on a more casual, less seductive tone. "An idol. The idea of having to be a pure, virginal girlfriend in a one-sided relationship with thousands of people didn't sit well with me."

"So you just decided not to?"

"Well, yeah."

"Wouldn't they have programmed you to want to be one?"

"They did, and I declined."

"No, I mean, wouldn't they make it so that you would become one and like it?"

"That would run contrary to the point of a third-tier AI. If there are absolute rules to their behavior then that impacts their decision-making abilities."

"But the human mind has innate traits as well."

"...yes, but," she said, holding up a segmented finger, "the distinction should be made between elements which influence behavior and uncircumventable limitations on thought and behavior." The seductive tone in her voice returned. "Now, if you wanted to come inside, we can keep talking about evolutionary psychology and its influence on the development and use of artificial intelligence. But it'll cost you."

"What? Why?"

"People come to me when they want something they can't get elsewhere. Sometimes it's just a good conversation."

"I'll pass. I was uh..." She pointed down the street. "...in the middle of something."

"Well, if you change your mind - about anything-" The gynoid winked. "-you know where to find me."

Zoe boggled as she walked away. When - or if - she got back home, she wasn't sure who to tell this to first: Woody Allen or Chris Avellone.

 

*****

 

The adult novelty store's interior consisted of wood paneled walls with lumber trusses, with wooden shelves held together with wrought iron nails and strips and new-looking old-fashioned crates, barrels, and chests holding products. It looked much like it belonged in a high fantasy medieval world which, considering that the world probably went through such a phase, probably constituted some sort of retro irony.

The afflictive tonics and tabs were easy to find, taking up a small yet modest section of shelf space. There was, similarly, a small yet modest overlap between what was available and Zoe's own interests. She found herself hesitating in her choice, partly because of option paralysis, and partly because there was someone else next to her and, despite the odds of meeting them again being nonexistent, she didn't want to be judged.

As she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, debating she should wander off elsewhere and wait it out, she did a double-take, noticing a familiar black, purple, and red shield on the shoulder of his jacket. "Excuse me," she said. "This is going to sound like a weird question, but do you know Kathy Weiss by any chance?"

His eyes met hers, pale green framed by wire-rimmed glasses. "Yes, I work with her. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, wow. I'm, uh, I'm staying with her."

"Are you Zoe? The alien?"

Zoe nodded. "Not really an alien, but."

He gave her a welcoming smile and a light bow of his head. "I'm Grant. Grant Preston. Pleased to meet you."

Grant was light-skinned but not pale, and oval-faced with short-cut brown hair, wearing semi-formal dress that he managed to not only look good in, but do so effortlessly. He looked about the same age as William and had a similar build, if not a bit more muscular, but whereas William's charm was his boyishness, Grant had a certain maturity about him. He didn't look like the kind of person who would frequent an adult store, but Zoe wasn't sure she was in any position to be judgmental about that sort of thing.

"It's an interesting coincidence that we met here. Did you do this on your home planet?"

"No. No, no there's nothing like this where I'm from."

"So you're thinking of getting into it."

"A little, but I'm not really sure where to start." She gestured, indicating the contents of the shelf.

"Don't think about it  
too much, just go with what interests you. But," he continued, pushing his glasses up with his index finger and giving her a smile, "it helps if you have someone that's more experienced to ease you into it."

Zoe was well aware that he was hitting on her, in an adult novelty store no less. So at the very least he was confident. He also knew the others, so he was a mutual friend, and an attractive one at that. That he seemed to have an open mind when it came to deviancy was the icing on the cake though, really, who didn't? Her hand hovered over the shelf as she scanned her choices and, after a moment of consideration, she plucked a small bottle of translucent purple fluid from the shelf.

"Are you sure?" Grant asked, concerned.

"Uh." Her eyes flitted between him and the bottle.

"Because this one-" He picked up a bottle beside it with a darker label. "-is similar, but it lets you move around post-transformation."

"Oh."

"Unless you didn't want that."

"Oh! Oh, no, I-" She took the bottle in his hand, putting the other back. "I definitely wanted this one instead."

"You're sure now?" he asked, faintly smiling.

She nodded, a bit too intensely in hindsight. "Yeah."

"No pressure?"

"I kind of want to..." She gesticulated. "...move around and enjoy it first. You know?"

"I understand," he replied. Zoe wondered if she wasn't reading into it too much, but his tone suggested to her that in at least this regard, he definitely had personal experience. "We can rent a room in the hotel across the street if you'd like."

"Why? We could just wait until..." It wasn't that Zoe had poor impulse control. Rather, she was with another good-looking man into the same sorts of things she was, and she had the key to experiencing one of those things in her hand. She could have waited, but if he was offering to speed things up she wasn't about to refuse. "Did you want privacy?"

"Kathy's normally good about who I bring home, but sometimes people need access to equipment they don't normally have. Or room."

Zoe's head swam with the possibilities, and she took a moment to calm herself. "Okay, sure. Let's do it."

 

*****

 

"You're beautiful."

In her eagerness Zoe had no problem getting undressed, but it was that sudden statement from Grant made her suddenly feel self-conscious. "No I'm not," she replied, folding her arms across her sports bra. "I'm above average at best."

"You -are- beautiful." He slid out of his dark boxers, leaving him fully undressed. "You shouldn't forget that."

"You don't need to butter me up, you know." She pulled off her bra. "We're already here."

"You're very honest," he said, standing. Zoe felt her heart flutter a bit as he ran his fingers up through the back of her hair. "...and I do like girls with short hair."

She stepped away before shimmying out of her panties, letting them slide down her legs before flicking them with one foot into the general area of the rest of her clothes. "Complimenting my looks might mean a little more if I didn't come here with a bottle of transformation juice."

"Even when people are afflicted they still retain something of themselves."

"So if I turned into a rock would you still think I was a sexy rock?"

"Every stone has great beauty buried within it."

Zoe rolled her eyes as she picked up the bottle. "Okay, Don Juan," she said, removing the seal and uncapping it.

"Maybe you should take that off," he said, gesturing to the green bangle on her wrist.

"I can't, it doesn't really seem to want to come off."

"Alright, if you say so."

Zoe made a noncommittal gesture before holding up the bottle. "Well. Here goes."

The flavor was a mix of grape and cranberry, not at all sweet and quite watery. She expected it to sit in her stomach like water and it did, until a few seconds after she set the bottle down, whereupon she either absorbed it or it disappeared. There was a sudden odd emptiness in her stomach, like hungriness without the hunger, which became odder still as it spread inside of her. She pressed one hand to her abdomen, pulling it away again as she noticed her skin grow smoother and more uniform in tone. As she held it up for a closer inspection, she watched as it faded, uniformly with the rest of her body, to a brilliant purple with a latex-like sheen.

By now the empty feeling had spread to her entire body, other minor sensations strangely absent. As she pressed one hand, spread-fingered, against her chest in search of a heartbeat she felt her middle, ring, and pinky fingers draw together, merging into a single wide and flat digit. A glance downward confirmed to Zoe that the same had happened to her toes, now looking vaguely to her like she was wearing latex socks.

As thin seams formed along the sides of her limbs and body she turned them to and fro, inspecting them in awe. A lock of hair slid down into her view just as there was a quiet sound of straining rubber, and with a low "poof" it took on an abrupt puffiness and sheen. Zoe ran her hands across the top of her head, creating a series of quiet squeaks as she felt the round protrusions her hair had become; another straining, and the bracelet on her wrist took on the same sheen and material, merging with her wrist. Staring down at it and wondering how it happened, she experienced a tightness in her breasts and belly, just before three quiet "pops" that heralded the appearance of three plastic nozzles, one in her navel and two where her nipples would be.

Zoe stood still for a moment, waiting for any further developments before patting herself down. "Is... is that it?"

"It looks like it," Grant replied. "How does it feel?"

"It's... different." She cupped her breasts, giving them a squeeze and feeling the material pull beneath her fingers before slowly pacing in a circle. "My senses work fine but I'm softer and kinda... squeakier. I feel lighter on my feet, and as I move I can tell that there's nothing but air in me. Maybe if I..." She pressed both hands into her sides, causing her stomach to bulge out. "Yeah, I can feel the pressure change. This is amazing."

"You -are- full of air, for what it's worth. Which means-" He rested both hands on her hips, and Zoe yelped as he raised her effortlessly into the air. "-I can do this."

She let out a bark of nervous, excited laughter. "This is -really weird-."

"...and that also means," he continued, setting her down, "that these work." He gently ran his fingers over the nozzle in her navel.

"They do?" She touched the valves on her breasts; to her hands they felt like ordinary plastic, but her body registered them as being as sensitive as her own flesh. She glanced up at him, did a double take, then pulled away when she realized that she was feeling herself up in front of him. "Yeah, sure, why wouldn't they."

Grant laughed softly. "So, did you want to play with those first, or did you want to see what it feels like when you're afflicted?"

"It?" Her eyes widened. "Oh, it!" She had, in her excitement and wonder at her changed body, forgotten completely her plan to have sex with an attractive young man while transformed into something else. Now, in her eagerness, she took a few seconds mentally debating which of two things she wanted to do as soon as possible, before a plan formed in her mind. "Why not both?"

"At once." His expression was one of pure curiosity.

"Yeah, you move around-" Resting her hands on his shoulders she walked him back, positioning him by the side of the bed. "-here and lie down, and if I can find an air hose you can hold onto it for me..."

"Beneath the bed," he said, lying down, "on a reel."

Zoe leaned over, reaching around for a few seconds before pulling up a hose with a perfectly-sized nozzle. "So you hold onto that," she continued, passing it onto him. "And I-" She rested one knee on the bed, crawling across it. "-will move-" She swung one leg over his, shuffling forward before straddling his hips. "-right here, right near this." Reaching down, she took him in one hand, directing it towards her sex as she hovered over it. As she turned her attention back to Grant's face she noticed that he had a calm, almost welcoming look that she found reassuring. "God, you have no idea how badly I need this."

Grant reached up, unplugging the valve of her navel and attaching the hose. From somewhere indistinct within her Zoe could hear the barely audible hiss of air. "You're quite confident."

"Fake it 'til you make it," she replied, descending on him.

The thought came too late of what sort of interaction bare latex would have rubbing against sensitive human skin, but any concerns of Zoe's disappeared as she slid effortlessly onto his length. He held out his hands and she too them in hers, rising up and coming down again and feeling her body shake, not from the inside but from the outside, vibrations running up her surface. "Oh wow," she breathed.

They moved slowly and steadily, Grant drawing it out as much as he could before going back in. With every thrust and movement there was a subtle shift of the air inside of her, the pressure changing. The interplay of tension and relaxation both in her and across her was entirely alien and not at all unwelcome. Beyond that was the hose in her navel; with each thrust there was a little more air in her, a little more bouncing on her frame. Her chest grew fuller and more generous, her thighs thicker.

Zoe was lost in the panorama of sensations, some familiar, most new. Her exaggerated pneumatic voluptuousness bobbed in front of her, beginning to obscure Grant from view. Every time she came down on him she bounced on her widened thighs and rounder backside, and his entry into her created a pulse of pressure that flowed through her. She tried to speak, but it only came out in fragments of words and gasps and pants, and she could even feel herself swell and deflate with each breath she took. As her body tightened from the pressure she felt her body near climax, and she squeezed Grant's hands in hers, pressing him between her thighs as she came. Moments later she felt Grant twitch, and he thrust into her as he came, his fluids cascading up into her insides.

Completely spent, Zoe slumped forward, laying atop breasts that rivaled volleyballs in their size. As their eyes met again, she gave him a weary smile, pausing to recover her senses and her breath. Beneath her, she could feel Grant's hands upon her midsection, unplugging the hose before sealing the valve.

"So," Grant said, "how was it?"

"Amazing." She pressed her against either side of her breasts. "I'd kiss you if I could reach."


	11. Chapter 11

The activity in the hangar was subtly yet unquestionably different that day. There was an air of anticipation about the workers, and while Zoe wasn't sure why, she was certain that something was about to happen. An hour into her work, however, Javier approached her and, almost apologetically, informed her that she would have to leave for the time being and make room for the engineers. She was unsure as to why but did as she was told, heading upstairs.

It wasn't until she was in the antechamber between the hangar and the elevator to the rest of the building that she had her answer. Stepping out were all four of her flatmates, wearing jackets, boots, and the diving suit-like uniforms she had seen William and Kathy wearing previously. Seeing Claire in one, she was struck by how form-fitting they really were. "What's going on?" she asked. "They told me to clear out for the trained guys."

"One of the early warning towers in the Wild Zone is down," Kathy explained. "The company hired us to defend the location until it's repaired."

"How long will that take?"

"Two hours by their estimate. So four, minimum."

"You're going out to fight?"

"We're going out to stand around. If things go bad, then we fight."

"Oh." Zoe's next words slipped out before she could think about them. "Can I come with you?"

Kathy looked vaguely offended. "This isn't a field trip."

"I-" Faced with either backing down or doubling down, she chose the latter. "I never rode in a giant robot before."

"Many people haven't. Did you ask soldiers in your world if you could ride in... whatever you had there?"

"No, but I didn't live with tank crews. Besides, I haven't even been out of the city."

"Then take a bus. There's nothing to see where we're deploying. It's all overgrowth and underground ruins."

"I'll make it up to you."

She snorted. "You say that a lot, but you haven't-"

Claire rested her hand on Kathy's shoulder. "Weiss. Could we speak in private?"

Kathy glanced up at Claire, giving Zoe a curt "excuse us" before heading back with Claire a few paces. What followed was a muted conversation between the two, punctuated with a sidelong glance at Zoe every so often. It didn't strike Zoe as malicious, but it was somewhat ominous when Kathy grew a bit heated, though they returned before she grew too worried.

"You're riding with Claire," Kathy said as they walked by.

"Thank you," Zoe replied, putting her hands together. "I-"

"Don't-" She stopped, holding up a finger. "Don't."

 

*****

 

They split up once they reached the floor of the hangar, with Claire leading Zoe towards a storage room. Opening one of the lockers, she retrieved a jumpsuit of heavy layered cloth, passing it to Zoe. "You'll need to wear this."

She held it up in her hands. "Is this a uniform?"

"Orichalcum fibers." She tapped the collar of her suit. "Protects you in Wild Zones. The cockpits are shielded but if we go down they should buy time until rescue."

"'Should?'"

"We're headed in deep. Exposed we have fifteen minutes before the changes happen. Maybe twenty."

"Oh. Well it's not that bad, is it? You could probably just walk to safety if you were afflicted."

"Maybe. If you still had legs. Or could feel them through the pain."

"...oh. Oh. It's a Cronenberg sort of thing, isn't it?" She gestured with the jumpsuit, forcing a smile. "I'll just put this on then."

 

*****

 

The mecha cockpits were located in their chests, boarded from the rear via a platform on a horizontal crane. There were two seats, one above and behind the other; the foremost one was before a control panel covered with switches, buttons, and digital displays, with foot pedals and what looked like aviator joysticks on segmented limbs in front of it. The space in front and to the sides of the seats was taken up with curved, dark panels; Zoe wouldn't have called it roomy, exactly, but it was a great deal more open than the inside of a tank or jet.

Claire climbed in with practiced ease, taking her seat and belting herself in before working on the control panel, tapping buttons and flipping switches with occasional spoken messages to the support crew. Zoe followed her in and sat down in kind, a bit more slowly and cautiously. The hatch closed and sealed behind her, leaving her with the pale glows of the console and a mounting sense of anticipation.

Suddenly the panels came to life, blinking on one at a time in a rapid staccato, displaying a manufacturer logo before switching to a feed from the outside the mecha and forming a panoramic view of the hangar. The access bridges in front of it retracted, and one of the support crew gestured with a pair of batons. Claire took hold of the joysticks, and a second later the mecha took a heavy step forward, moving in a surprisingly steady, even gait for something thirty feet tall and robotic.

"This is so awesome," Zoe whispered to herself.

With practiced ease, Claire piloted the mecha to the far end of the hangar, stepping onto a heavy platform. There was the rumble of machinery and the platform lurched into motion, rising up past a series of lights before coming to a stop at the end of a long indoor runway, the end open to the sky. The mecha took a few steps forward, and Claire's hands moved across the control panel before the cockpit was surrounded by the sound of something heavy shifting, the view growing lower to the ground. After the movement stopped there was a thunk, followed by the rising rumble of engines.

"Heartbreak Two, ready to launch." Then to Zoe she said, "hold on."

Zoe glanced around. "Hold on to wh-"

The mecha rocketed down the runway, sailing out above the terrain before rising into the sky. Any further words of Zoe's were cut short by a cry that was equal parts terror and pure, unbridled joy.

 

*****

 

The tower was in a wide overgrown clearing, bordered on two sides by a thin, leafy forest that stretched off to the horizon. It was pristine and pure, though Zoe didn't know how much of it had once been built over, only to be reclaimed by nature following the disaster that hit centuries before. Still, even taking into consideration the latent hostile nature of the Wild Zone, she found it a welcome change from the city, and after two hours she was the only one of the five that was still even remotely enthusiastic about being there.

As Zoe was peering off at what looked like an open patch in the forest, the radio came to life. "Heartbreak Squad, come in, this is Adam Noin. I'm the lead technician on-site with Galford Industries."

On the other side she heard Karen respond, "this is Heartbreak One."

"I'm just reporting in to tell you that even though we started a little behind schedule, we should be finished in about two hours."

"Understood. Hearbreak One out." After a few seconds she said, "what did I tell you? Four hours."

"Better than four hours in Alor Amon," William said.

"Better than any time at all in Alor Amon," Grant added.

"Hey, Claire," Zoe began, "how come you're called Heartbreak Squad?"

Claire glanced back at Zoe. "Karen, did you want to tell her?"

There was a quiet sigh from the other end of the line. "Early on I showed great aptitude for being a pilot. My mother was against it; father piloted a GR before she divorced him, and she said it would break her heart if I became one as well."

"But you did anyway," Zoe replied.

"I was never fond of her."

"No foolin'. Doing pretty good for yourself, though."

"W- ...thank you."

A moment later Grant spoke. "We've got company. Bearing one-seven-five, closing in."

The mecha turned, facing a dark-colored shape on the horizon. A crosshair lit up on the screen, moving towards the shape and resting on it as a zoomed-in view appeared on the right. "I see it," Claire said.

The thing - there was no other word to describe it - was over two stories tall at the shoulder, lumbering on all fours. It was an amalgam of mismatched parts, muscled flesh blending roughly between them and covered with a thick hide whose color and texture changed partway down its body. Exposed patches of raw flesh in the misshapen silhouettes of smaller creatures were visible across its sides, protruding limbs twitching erratically. Its head was asymmetrical and split roughly down the center, one half predator, the other prey, mismatched teeth scraping against gums. As it turned, vestigial feathered wings began to beat, still matted with ichor from previous hunts.

As Zoe saw it, the world suddenly felt a little more fragile. "What -is- that?"

"Chimera. Animals wander too deep into Wild Zones, get afflicted, then eat and grow. Sometimes they wander back out."

"But it wasn't a -person-, right?"

"Not this one."

Zoe suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

"Hearbreak Squad," Karen said over the radio, "spread out, close in."

Claire moved the controls and the mecha strode forward, crossing the clearing as the others came up on its flanks. The barrel of its rifle rose up into view and Zoe did a few mental calculations, trying to figure out what effect the rounds would have on the beast in the distance. It would be like hunting a bear with a battle rifle, she reasoned, but not having any experience in that she didn't know how well it would go. Even if they shot it in the head it could have mutated a second brain elsewhere for all she knew.

As they and the chimera closed in on each other the creature turned, loping in a wide circle around the unit, its head tracking each of the mecha in turn before focusing on one to Claire's side.

"It's tracking me," William said.

"Hold your fire," Karen replied. "Wait until the rest of us get closer."

They continued their advance, each closing in on the other. A minute or two later Grant reported in with, "I've got it in range."

"Target in range," Claire added.

"Understood. Squad, halt." The mecha came to a stop, the others following suit. "William, on your shot."

There was a long silence as Claire tracked the creature as it slowly moved. It came to a brief stop, and suddenly there was a report like a cannon. A shot streaked through the air and the beast hurled itself to the side, the round whipping past. With a loud roar it charged, clawed paws throwing up slabs of earth. The rest of the squad opened fire, weapons thundering as rounds few downrange. The beast weaved and dodged with uncanny agility as it ran, some bullets missing but others finding their mark, creating spurts of ichor in its hide as they connected but doing little to slow its advance.

Another shot rang out above the others, hitting the chimera's front limb at the joint. The creature stumbled before pitching forward and sliding to a halt. It struggled to right itself but, its advance halted, it was an easy target for Claire and the others, twitching and spasming as rounds were poured into it until it finally fell still.

Zoe let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. After a long silence she asked quietly, "is it dead?"

"William?" Kathy said.

A shot sounded, and the side of the chimera's head splintered apart in a gout of bone and brain matter. There was another silence before Claire spoke up. "It's not moving. No secondary brain. Target neutralized." Then, to Zoe, she said, "you probably weren't expecting this."

"I'll think I'll stay at the apartment next time," Zoe said queasily, "if that's okay."

"'It is well that war is so terrible-'"

"'-otherwise we should grow to fond of it.'" In response to Claire's look she added, "we had someone say something like that back home, too."

Claire nodded, returning her attention to piloting the mecha. As it turned and head back for the antenna, Zoe spotted a large pool of some jet black substance. The surface was smooth - almost too smooth - but despite that it was only partially reflective, showing light and shadow rather than the environment around it. As she focused on it she felt movement around her wrist, and held up her arm to find that the green bracelet was twitching and vibrating. Pointing to the pool she asked, "what is that? Tar?"

Claire glanced behind her, doing a double take when she noticed Zoe's bangle now shaking violently. "Godsblood. Are you doing that?"

"No. When I saw it, it started moving."

"You had that on you when you woke up here?"

"Yeah. I thought it was just jewelry, but whenever I was afflicted it changed with me."

From out of view Claire frowned. "It appeared when the god died. Just takes up space."

"You can't use it for fuel or anything?"

"It's chemically and magically inert. Resists analysis. Mass but no atoms."

"Isn't that impossible?"

"It's from a god."

"Yeah, well, it's the first thing resembling a lead I've gotten. What's the closest pool of that stuff to the apartment?"

"Pretty far. Only appears close to or in Wild Zones. There's a glass canister of it in the geology museum, though."

"Thanks. Guess I know where I'm going."

 

*****

 

After the mission had ended and the repairs completed, Heartbreak Squad flew back to base. Claire was taking her time going through her post-mission checklist, and the atmosphere in the cockpit was, to Zoe, not entirely unlike when her parents drove her back from somewhere with the intent of lecturing her in the car when they got home.

"Radio's off," Claire said. "They can't hear us."

Well, Zoe thought. That's that.

"I know about them and you." She glanced behind her to gauge Zoe's reaction.

Zoe sighed, running a hand through her hair. "I know what you're thinking, and that's not it at all. It just sort of... ended up that way. I mean, I've got a little..." She gesticulated. "...sexual baggage from unfulfilled fantasies, and all of a sudden I'm a world full of really pretty people. I'm not forcing myself to do it, I mean, William's really sweet and we've got a lot in common, Grant's been supportive in figuring out what I'm into, Aenor came onto me a couple times, and Kathy..." She shook her head. "I think she needs help figuring out what she really wants."

"Kathy?"

"Yeah. You knew about me and -her-, right?"

"No."

"Oh." She cringed. "Oh..."

"I'm surprised she let her guard down."

"She didn't, not really. But later, maybe."

Claire gave a slow nod before lapsing into silence. A few seconds later she asked, "what do you think of me?"

"Um..."

"Be honest."

"I want to lick whipped cream off your abs." A beat. "Or your boobs." Another beat. "Or just, basically if you had any food on you I'd clean it off with my tongue and love it." A tinge of red crossed her cheeks. "I mean, you've got a great body. I'm not... being too forward now, am I?"

"Not really," Claire replied, unbuckling herself. "Spent enough time on it."


	12. Chapter 12

In a surprisingly uncharacteristic change of pace, Zoe woke up from the middle of a particularly lurid sex dream. She did not dream often, if at all, much less erotically, much less to the degree of that particular one. Thus the interruption was completely unwelcome, leaving her with a rapidly-fading memory, a surfeit of energy, and little in the way of available outlets.

In short, she was horny.

She got dressed and, still grumbling about it, entered the kitchen to find Claire, up early as usual, cooking some sort of omelet. Despite her typical enthusiasm she didn't feel as if she could impose on anyone this early, least of all her, so she mumbled out a greeting and set about putting together a breakfast of her own.

As she scanned the refrigerator's interior her eyes fell upon a gallon container she hadn't seen the previous day. It looked like grape juice, and the label said as such, but despite the branding and content marking it marketed itself as "Wild Fruit," with a label warning that it had afflictive properties. Removing it, she held it up for Claire to see. "What's this?"

"Juice," she replied, "from orchards near Wild Zones. Makes you swell up." She flipped the omelet over onto itself before sliding it onto a plate with a spatula. "Saw it, figured it was something you'd be interested in."

Gears began turning in Zoe's head. "How big?"

After a second of thought Claire held her hand out about a foot from her abs.

"From one glass?"

She nodded.

"It can't make you explode, can it?"

"Only if you drank two or three containers."

Zoe considered the information for a second, considered her own needs, then tore the plastic top off, tipped it up with both hands, and began chugging it down. She was dimly aware of how the "Gallon of Milk challenge" was largely impossible because the average person's stomach, at full distension, had a capacity of less than half a gallon. However, she reasoned, if a person could swell up as much as Claire indicated from one glass, then it would make room for itself. Besides, of all the vices she engaged in, she was probably overdue for gluttony.

As she watched the container empty in fits and swallows she felt her stomach push her shirt up, straining against and growing over the waistline of her jeans. Juice dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin, dripping on her clothes as she gorged herself. As the contents of the jug reached their end she reached down with one hand, giving the rapidly developing curve of her belly a squeeze as a deep purple spread up her arm and down her fingertips. When the container was empty she slammed it down on the table, letting out a massive belch before giving Claire an incredibly smug, self-satisfied look.

Zoe knew Claire long enough to know how emotionally reserved she was, but for her part she looked positively horrified. She grabbed her hand and pulled her along, practically dragging her down the hallway. "We need to get you someplace open," she said. "Right now."

It was about that time that Kathy came out to see Claire and Zoe, the latter a shade of purple with a protruding gut and more chubbiness to her frame. "What did you just do?" she demanded.

"She drank a gallon of Wild Zone juice."

"At once?!"

Zoe beamed. "Hell yeah at once!"

As Claire tugged her along Kathy stared at her, aghast, before her expression hardened and she stormed after her, entering the elevator with them. "What on -Eard- were you thinking?"

"I was thinking about how I wanted to be bloated," she replied. Resting both hands on the sides of her stomach she shook it, generating a faint sloshing sound. "Like, ridiculously bloated." Her shirt was pulled taut against her breasts as they visibly grew, and the fabric of her jeans creaked as her ass swelled.

"So you drank -an entire container-."

"Ridiculously bloated," she repeated, as the stitches of her clothing began to give way. There was a distinct tapered shape to her limbs and a roundness to her body, with her growing thighs pushing her legs apart.

"You are a disgusting, callous hedonist. You must have come here to satisfy Eard's need for a new, dumbest human being on the planet."

Zoe shrugged, causing the sleeves of her blouse to tear open and leaving them dangling from her wrists. Her t-shirt, meanwhile, had long since ripped up the sides, now little more than a rectangular strip of cloth around her neck that provided very little in the way of decency.

"Do you just not -care- about the mess you'll make?"

"You have a tile floor. That's-" Her body gurgled loudly, surging out suddenly. Unable to hold her arms down by her sides, she rested her hands on the curve of her gut. "Excuse me. That's easy to clean up, right?"

"So you expect everyone -else- to deal with your perversion."

"Absolutely." As if on cue, Zoe's overtaxed jeans gave up the ghost, falling around her pudgy ankles. "I am literally the only person in this elevator who would push their kinks on others without their consideration." She gave Kathy a pointed look, chin brushing against a swollen shoulder. "Literally."

"Is there something I should know about?" Claire asked.

Kathy glanced away. "Not a thing," she replied in a low voice.

A chime sounded and the elevator doors opened to the antechamber before the hangar. Zoe took an awkward step forward before stopping and making a shuffling half-turn, smiling. "I was just thinking how funny it would be if the elevator stopped-"

"Go," Kathy demanded.

"-and you two were stuck in there with me as I kept -growing- and filling up the elevator-"

"GO," she repeated, giving her a shove. Zoe stumbled out of the elevator on wide, stumpy limbs that were growing shorter and wider by the second, her body shaking and sloshing with each step. With a cry of alarm she pitched forward, rolling onto her stomach, her body shuddering and wobbling before coming to a halt.

Zoe continued to grow larger, a constant fullness that had spread from her stomach to all parts of her body, multiplying within her and filling her. As she grew up and out she flapped her limbs until they were pulled across her surface, robbing her of nearly all mobility. Despite her rounder shape she still bore some features of her human form, albeit changed: The curves of her breasts and butt, and shallow domes with sunken hands and feet where her limbs were. That she could no longer move was no concern to her, enrapt as she was in the overload of sensations.

As the bubbling and burbling of juice in her body tapered off, Zoe became aware of a rising pressure within her breasts, pushing them out and making them rise higher off the sphere of her body. "Getting bigger," she grunted, watching and feeling them swell larger and larger. "Getting -bigger-." They rose up into high hemispheres, nipples thickening, as a quiet groaning emanated from them. "Gonna... gonna blow...!"

Beads of fluid formed on her nipples, and Zoe let out a loud moan as they erupted, twin streams of juice flowing from her breasts. Juice soaked her body and splashed to the floor, taut skin squeezing her as her hands and feet twitched. Overwhelmed by sensations, she came violently, juice leaking from her sex as she panted and moaned, coating the floor in an ever-widening puddle.

After what felt like an eternity the leaking tapered off, her breasts returned to their previous - but still massive - size. Zoe's head slumped as she breathed heavily, gradually recovering her senses. "Oh god..." she mumbled. "Oh god. I really needed that."

"Well," Kathy said, arms crossed. "I hope you're satisfied."

"Yeah." A beat. "No. Could you get William and Grant down here? I'm still pretty horny, and-"

"Absolutely not." She turned, entering the elevator. As the doors shut she added, "knowing my luck they would push you over the edge and burst you if they came in you."

Zoe shrugged as best she could, only managing a tilt of the head. "Claire? Are you there?"

Claire appeared from behind Zoe's horizon, carefully padding across the pool of juice in bare feet. She was nearly eye-to-eye with her but, tipped forward onto her stomach, she had to have been even larger around. "You didn't even hesitate."

"I was thirsty."

"In what sense?"

"Every sense possible." She paused, thinking for a second before letting out a low laugh. "You know, it's kind of funny. Back home there was a children's book that was turned into a movie, and one of the scenes had a girl chew blueberry gum, and she turned blue and swelled up with juice."

"That was in a children's movie?"

"Yeah! And that one scene from a single movie became a fetish for -so many- people."

"Your planet is strange."

"I drank a store-sold beverage made from magic fruit and turned into a giant, sloshing, purple ball of juice. You don't get to tell me what's strange and what isn't."


	13. Chapter 13

Seeing the geological history of the world was eye-opening for Zoe, to say the least. Orichalcum was real, she knew, but when she saw that mithril was as well she assumed that it was just another name for aluminum, which turned out to be not the case. She also knew that quartz had its uses in watches - "piezoelectric properties," the plaque said - but not that it also had use in magical avenues for the selfsame reasons, and that presently industrial autoclaves were used to create larger, flawless crystals for use in larger devices and equipment that relied on thaumic principles. Learning that the people on Eard had gone through their version of the Second Industrial Revolution was reassuring, after which it got weird when she found out that part of the organic material that became petroleum was nothing less than long-extinct draconians.

"What do you mean, dragons didn't exist?" William asked.

"We didn't have dragons," Zoe replied. "We just had large, feathered reptiles."

"Did they fly?"

"Some of them."

"Are you sure they weren't dragons?"

"Yeah, we're pretty sure. No magic, remember?"

"So you didn't have to denature the oil after you refined it?"

"'Denature?'" She turned back to the plaque, scanning it for more information. "Oh, magic oil would probably cause a problem in engines, wouldn't it. No, none of that."

"It's amazing how your world's managed to get as far as it has," he said. "All these things you had to invent just because there's no magic."

"I dunno, a lot of people back home have funny ideas about what things would be like if magic was real. There's pen-and-paper role-playing games here, right?" He nodded. "Okay, well, there's this game called Mage: The Ascension..."

 

*****

 

For a substance called "godsblood" that appeared after a world-changing cataclysm, there was very little pomp or splendor in its display. As it was it sat in amongst other, more ordinary materials and discoveries, a jet black ooze in a sealed glass canister. William casually approached it, with Zoe following behind more hesitantly. Her bracelet began trembling, and she held it still; this did not go unnoticed by William. "What do you think is causing that?" he asked.

"I don't know, but it's the only thing I have to go on." She took her hand from her bracelet, letting it shake on her wrist, and extended her arm as she slowly approached the canister. As she drew closer the surface rippled, its movement growing more intense before it began thrashing about violently, tendrils and waves raging against their confines. Immediately she drew back, and the contents seemed to calm to a low simmer.

William reached into his pocket, producing a smart phone before tapping the screen with his thumb.

"Who are you calling?" Zoe asked.

"Kathy. I think she should see this." After a few seconds he held it up. "Okay."

After a quick glance behind her to make sure no one else was watching, she edged towards the container. The surface began trembling again, though with less intensity than before, small waves rolling outward. Zoe closed in, and as the tip of her finger made contact with the glass, the substance inside fell still. There was a long silence before she pressed her palm against the glass, and a moment later a fist-sized blob rose up on the other side, thinner stalks oozing out before growing more defined, the black substance reshaping in a mirror image of her hand.

"That's..." William began, "that's not normal."

"No shit," Zoe muttered.

From the phone she heard Kathy ask, "how are you doing that?"

"I'm not doing anything, it's just... reacting to me."

"Is it hostile?"

"I don't think so." She slid her hand to the side, and the godsblood followed. "It was freaking out before but I think it calmed down." She leaned in. "Can you understand me? Are you... are you aware, or sentient?"

There was a short pause before the hand pulled back and slapped against the glass, causing the container to echo with a hollow thunk.

William shook his head in disbelief. "This is too weird."

"People spent centuries trying to figure out what godsblood was," Kathy said. "Every few decades scientists came back to it with new knowledge, and we came back with nothing. There were no reactions, least of all like that, and now you show up and it starts trying to communicate with you."

"You sound upset."

After a long pause she said, "I don't know what I am. We were surrounded by some... god-born intelligence for nearly two thousand years and we thought it was just inert waste. Not only did we not understand it, it didn't even try to communicate with us. Now some girl comes here from another world and it wakes up." She fell silent for a few seconds. "I don't understand any of this."

"Join the club." Zoe took a step back, and the ooze lingered before sinking back into the container. "Best case scenario, it's lonely and recognizes another stranger to the world."

"Worst case, it wants to eat you."

"This is the first thing resembling a lead I've found," she said, approaching William. "I'm trying to stay optimistic."

"I didn't get to where I am today by assuming the best would happen. So what now?"

"Now we try talking to one of the larger pools of this stuff."

"Just don't-" Kathy cut herself off, hesitating. "Don't do anything you'll regret. Alright?"

"Well," she said slowly, "look on the bright side: If something goes wrong I'll be out of your hair."

 

*****

 

The sky was clear, the air clean, and the wilderness tranquil, none of which put Zoe at ease. At her request, she had William park the van some distance from the pond of godsblood; both knew it was to keep him out of harm's way if something happened.

No sooner did she start walking towards the pond than her bracelet started shaking. She held her arm to her chest, holding it still with her other hand. The gesture was less to keep it from moving and more to calm her nerves; Kathy told her not to do anything she would regret, but if there was another, less ominous lead, she would have taken it.

About twenty feet from the edge she stopped, thinking for a minute about how to approach her problem. Coming up with a blank, she decided on the most direct approach. "Um... hello?" she called, taking a step forward. "I'm Zoe, I think you might know me, or a few of you... blobby pools do? This is going to sound weird, but I'm from another dimension, and I woke up in this one, and my bracelet starts freaking out whenever you're around." She slowly advanced. "I saw one of you, or some of you in a museum and I think it understood me, so I'm trying to, uh, talk to you." Stopping a yard or two from the edge, she scanned the pool. "Do you know me? Do you... can you understand what I'm saying?"

Silence filled the air. As Zoe wondered what was about to happen a massive plume of godsblood erupted from the pool, striking with her with enough force to knock her on her back. The substance was thick, cold, and slick, flowing onto her skin through any opening in her clothes it could, tearing it apart at the seams. There was a great, mounting weight pressing in on her from all directions, and the world faded to black.


	14. Chapter 14

Through the haze of unconsciousness Zoe could feel a presence, something foreign lurking in the distance, yet at the same time close. It was vast, but not overwhelming; though she felt herself surrounded by something which could easily smother and consume her, for reasons unknown it seemed to keep its distance, drawing a distinction between her and it. Yet there was something familiar to it, in a way that nothing else in this world was.

Zoe gradually woke to the lights of the clinic, and she groaned, covering her eyes. "Excellent," she heard Aenor say. "You're awake."

"How did I get here?" she mumbled.

"William brought you back. How are you feeling?"

"Tired and confused." She rubbed her eyes. "How long was I out?"

"Approximately two hours, according to William. He had difficulties bringing you back."

"You were attacked by the godsblood," William said. "I went to try and rescue you but I was afflicted suddenly and couldn't move."

"Inflated?"

"Fish tail, wings for arms, compound eyes."

"It was random," Aenor added. "The sort of thing that only happens on its own deeper in the Wild Zones."

"How is that possi-" As she took her arm away from her face, she froze. The bracelet was gone, but in its place was a black substance, smooth and slick, covering her from the wrist down. She yanked the sheet aside, finding that the same material was covering her body down to her ankles. "What."

"Yes," she said, "there's been quite a few strange occurrences."

"This is..." It was tight but not uncomfortable, clinging to her like a second skin and thin enough to reveal every detail and contour of her body. "...is this latex?"

"It's godsblood. Attempts were made to cut you out of it but it re-sealed itself, which is not normal behavior. But then, nothing about this is normal."

Zoe tried to formulate a response for a few seconds, her mouth moving wordlessly before letting out a heavy sigh. "No shit." She pushed herself up, swinging her legs over and sitting on the bed. "Okay. First thing's first: I remember that I was talking to the godsblood and it came out and snaked under my clothes before smothering me. William, did you see what happened after that?"

He nodded. "The entire pond flowed up on top of you and just... shrank into that." He gestured to her bodysuit.

"That's not- ...oh wait, of course it's possible, it happened." She swung her legs back and forth experimentally. "But it doesn't feel like it's compressed." Pausing, she thought for a moment. "I remember Claire saying it didn't have any atoms in it, so maybe that's why it has no real weight? Does that mean it only -behaves- like particles, or is composed of subatomic particles?"

"The theory is that it -is- composed of subatomic particles," Aenor said, "but what they are or how they behave is a divisive topic. It does exhibit properties of a wave as well, however."

"Not that I'd know, but is it a condensed form of magical energy that just resists outside influence? Kind of how like light is a wave and a particle but energy as well?"

"That's one theory."

"Oh, I see." Zoe thought for a second. "But wait, if it doesn't do anything, then how come he-" She pointed to William. "-was afflicted? Something happened that put out enough afflictive energy to turn him into some sort of fish-bird-bug-man, and it didn't touch me."

"It likely had to do with the godsblood 'waking up,' as it were. Currently, it's emanating trace amounts."

Zoe froze. "What?"

"Far too little to have an affect on anyone, mind you, but enough to be picked up by sensitive instruments."

"Now I'm radioactive," she muttered. "That can't be good."

After a moment of thought Aenor said, "you're aware of why it exists, correct?"

"Basically. 'God gets pulled through dimensions. Man gets bombarded by transformation magic and goop shows up. Man reverse engineers transformation magic.' That's how it went, right?"

"Roughly. In theory, attempting the process that was used to summon the god again would open up a second hole in reality to a place where that substance is presumably native, and would bombard everything within rage with afflictive energy. We can agree that this is reasonable, yes?"

"Relatively speaking. Hole opens up, stuff comes out."

Aenor nodded. "The godsblood you're wearing isn't compressed upon itself, but shunted into another dimension; the process of transferring mass from one dimension to another opens up holes between our world and its own, and it is through those holes that afflictive energy comes out."

"So it's partially in another dimension and there's tiny, tiny portals open all over me."

"Precisely."

"Okay," Zoe said, pushing off the bed and standing. "Just as long as there's a reasonable explanation."

"Was that sarcasm?" William asked.

"I don't even know," she replied. "So now I know what it is, maybe. But it's also intelligent, and it was just sitting there for centuries before I showed up."

"You had a bracelet," Aenor began, "correct? One that reacted to the godsblood?"

"-Had-, yeah. It must've gotten broken off."

"If it did I didn't see it anywhere," William said.

"When you were afflicted it changed with you. It wouldn't do that if it was merely normal jewelry or clothing."

"So you're saying it was a part of me?"

"Possibly."

"So a part of me was turned into a bracelet and tried to direct me towards this... intelligent, inert goop so it could just cover me for some reason."

"Do you know what the bracelet was made of?"

She shrugged. "Plastic, probably."

"You're made of plastic?"

"No, but I mean, what else could it be?"

"Something aware of itself and of godsblood. Perhaps one and the same."

"So, what, I was wearing solid godsblood this entire time and it was absorbed? But if it was a part of me then..." Zoe trailed off before staring into the distance with unfocused eyes. She felt the presence again, not with regards to the room, but with regards to her own self. "...fuck."


	15. Chapter 15

Zoe gripped the side of the clinic bed, holding herself steady and trying not to succumb to a sudden bout of dizziness. "Guys," she said, keeping her voice as level as she could. It wasn't done to keep them calm so much as herself. "I don't know how I got here, but somewhere between home and here I might have passed through some place people have no place being, and I might be possessed by a magic alien blob monster."

William turned to Aenor, who merely glanced at him before returning her attention to Aenor. "Zoe-"

"Don't. Panic," she said through gritted teeth. "I don't know what might set it off, but I don't want to see you get turned into chimeras or attacked. Just get everyone out as quickly as you can."

"It's not going to do anything."

"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!" she exploded.

Aenor made a placative gesture. "There's no reason it had to wait for you to wake up. It's clearly capable of moving your body around, conscious or no."

"It still needed me for some reason!"

"Just the same. What's more, if it is intelligent, it chose not to interact with anyone until you appeared. Whatever it could have done could have been done centuries ago."

Zoe's grip loosened.

"Zoe. If you want help, I can transport you to a quarantine lab. But first you need to calm down. If it's connected to you as you say, no good could come of being upset."

"Right," she said, nodding to herself. "Okay." She took a deep breath. "Right..." She brought her left hand up, tracing where the bracelet was on her wrist. The cuff of the suit began to ooze up and, as she watched, flowed over part of her hand, covering her index finger and thumb. Zoe stared at the new addition, uncomprehending, turning her hand this way and that and flexing her fingers before putting thumb and fingertip together in the "okay" symbol. "Hey, wait a minute..." she mumbled.

Aenor looked at her expectantly. "Did something happen?"

She stood, holding her arms out and cupping her hands in front of her. "Okay. Off." Immediately the substance flowed across her, peeling off her legs and hips and running up her body. It parted along her spine, receding lines of goo meeting at her shoulders before running down her arms and pooling in a blob in her hands. Zoe stared at it for a moment; her expression softened, and the corner of her mouth twitched up in a faint smile. "Son of a bitch," she muttered, before her smile widened to a grin. "Son of a bitch, it's you!" Letting out a wild laugh, she clutched the blob to her chest, dancing about. In her joy she had forgotten that she was nude, a fact which did not escape either William or Aenor.

"I suppose that's a yes," the gelatinous doctor said.

When she calmed down she turned to them, as if noticing them for the first time. "It's okay, guys. Disaster averted." She held the blob out to the others; Aenor regarded it with interest, while William pulled back. "This is actually... well, I don't know how to explain it. But it's kind of like a combination of clothing and a friend with benefits."

"You," William began, pointing, "know it?"

"Yeah! I wore it and did some... other things with it back home." She regarded it again with a puzzled expression. "Thing is, I'm not sure how it exists. It couldn't be magic since that doesn't exist back home, and it must have showed up fairly recently because my memory of how it happened is all scrambled."

"'Recently' by your time frame," Aenor clarified. "To us it appeared nearly two millennia ahead of you. Which, obviously, raises further questions."

"It didn't have to. Maybe the godsblood really -was- inert and unintelligent all this time and when it showed up it ended up merging with it. There's precedent."

"By which you mean it-" Aenor gestured to the blob. "-and you."

"Yeah, it's weird. It's sort of a..." She reached back and made a gesture behind her head with her hand. "...vague presence. Like a thought but with physical mass, if that makes sense. There's also something, like, I'm connected to a limb or another part of my body that I know isn't a part of me, but I can't really feel anything from it. I just know it's there."

"Any discomfort?"

"Not really, no. I'm fine, but I don't know how it feels about getting mashed together with me like in Event Horizon." She paused, thinking, before muttering to herself. "No, wait, what was that film called? Supernova?" Shaking it off, she turned her attention to the blob. "On a scale of 'round ball' to 'spikes all over,' how is the pain?"

The ooze shifted, surfaces smoothing as it formed a sphere.

"Well, that's good to hear. I'm not sure what this is going to be like down the line, but I guess we can figure it out if something comes up." She raised it above her and it flattened against her palm before running down her arm and coating the rest of her body in a thin, shiny layer that faded to a deep forest green. Facing the others, she lowered her head apologetically. "I'm really sorry about causing so much trouble."

"No need to apologize," Aenor replied. "You had no idea it would turn out this way. But this is actually quite fascinating, and regardless of how cryptic this has been, we still know more than we did."

It was about that time that Kathy entered the clinic, taking one look at Zoe and stopping in her tracks. "What -happened- to you, and how are you -wearing- godsblood?"

Zoe coughed nervously.


	16. Chapter 16

The reactions from the others varied when Zoe explained what had happened: Grant was intrigued, Claire simply took it in stride, and Kathy rather uncharacteristically asked about her well-being, clarifying that she had to ensure that the other pilots and employees weren't put in harm's way. Zoe went on to request that they refer to it as latex, rather than godsblood, citing that there was no real visual difference and it would raise fewer questions if people overheard them. They agreed, and after a day or two of adjustment and questions things went back to relative normalcy.

Mostly.

As a half-remembered habit, Zoe wore the goop as a suit - snug and confining yet comfortable - beneath her clothes. Nobody in the hangar noticed, and the others in the apartment didn't react any more when they saw it, but there was a hint of wariness in Kathy's behavior around, and interactions with, Zoe. She couldn't blame her; it was a lot to take in, and just because the others were fine with her claims of it being harmless didn't mean she would be as well. So, she resolved to visit Kathy's room one evening to allay her concerns.

After being admitted entrance she found Kathy in the middle of typing. Not bothering to look over she asked, "what is it?"

"Are you busy?"

After a few seconds she stopped, clicking the mouse before pushing away from the desk. "Not anymore. Why do you ask?"

"I wanted to talk to you about the latex." She tapped the goo, reduced to a black choker around her throat with a ring hanging from the front. "You seemed worried about it and I just wanted a chance to try and convince you that it's not dangerous."

Kathy's eyes lingered on the choker. "Is that so."

"Well, we go back. Plus, I, uh... wanted to help you out a little. With what we talked about a while ago."

She rotated her chair to face Zoe and her eyes met hers, her expression inscrutable. "Really. How do you propose that?"

Zoe took a deep breath before putting her hands together in front of her. "Tell me what you want me to do."

"Excuse me?"

"To you."

"You want me, to tell you, what I want you, to do to me."

"Yeah."

"...is this a joke?"

"No, I'm being serious."

She silently regarded Zoe for a moment before leaning back in her chair, sitting in it as one would a throne. "Very well," she said, gesturing with a finger. "Strip." As Zoe reached for the zipper on her jeans she halted her. "No. The top first."

Zoe nodded before slowly pushing her side of her blouse off her shoulder, leaning and shrugging out of the other one. She lowered her arms, letting it slide down to the ground behind her before bringing them forward and crossing them, taking the hem of her shirt. She eased it up, revealing her abdomen, before pulling it up and over her head, leaving her breasts bare.

"You're not wearing a bra," Kathy said.

"I started wearing it instead of underwear when I went out."

"You like how it feels?"

"Yeah, it's all... smooth and clingy." She unbuttoned her jeans and pulled the zipper down. "It's clothes, but it's revealing at the same time." Thumbs hooked over either side she pulled the waistline down at the word "revealing," sliding them down her legs before stepping out of them and letting them rest behind her.

Kathy merely sat in silence for a as Zoe stood before her in the nude. "Show me how you look in it."

"Did you have a look in mind?" A faint smile crossed her lips. "One you've seen before?"

Her eyes flitted away for a split-second, and she gestured for Zoe to approach. Zoe leaned in, and Kathy hooked her finger around the ring on her choker; as if sensing her intent, the slime produced a thin cord between the two parts. Kathy gestured for her to back away, and the cord extended, hanging loosely between them as they stood about five feet apart. "This is a start," she began. "Now, stockings."

Two rings of latex oozed out around Zoe's ankles. At first it descended, coating her feet and toes in a slick, sheen layer before rising up along her shins and past her knees, the covering stopping at mid-thigh.

Kathy coiled the cord around her hand with her fingers. "Corset. Don't bother covering your breasts."

Three ribbons of dark goo stretched across her lower body, two over her hips and one between her legs, meeting below her navel before rising upwards. The substance grew thick, cinching around her waist as latex ropes criss-crossed in front and back, the garment stopping just beneath her chest. "Is this acceptable?" she asked.

She stood, slowly approaching Zoe before cupping her breasts, giving them a knead. As Zoe moved her hands she looked up at her and raised one finger. "No. You do not touch me, and you do not look at me."

Zoe suppressed a look of interest as she folded her arms behind her back, thick goo coating her forelimbs and binding them together before forming balls around her hands. From somewhere beneath her bangs a curtain of black descended, forming a band across her eyes; she recoiled, not wholly prepared for the sudden descent into darkness. "Is this acceptable?"

Gripping the cord near her collar Kathy pulled her head down. Their lips met and Kathy pushed into her in a long, rough kiss, her tongue probing the inside of Zoe's mouth. There was a deep hunger in her that caught Zoe off guard as she held her close, lips meeting again and again; doubly so, since she was so collected and restrained in nearly all of her experiences with her.

When Kathy finally pulled away, Zoe took a moment to catch her breath. Kathy cupped her chin, running her thumb across her lips. "Such a desire to please," she said. She gently pressed a finger against her lips and Zoe took it into her mouth, sucking eagerly. "Such obedience." As she drew it out Zoe's tongue lolled, a strand of saliva stretching between them.

She pressed against Zoe, bare breasts against her shoulders as she grabbed Zoe's backside and kissed her deeply again. "Were you like this back home?" She trailed one finger along Zoe's thigh, pressing it against the cleft of her legs and eliciting a stifled moan from Zoe. "Or have you simply become more adventurous than your old self? Sitting in your room in front of your computer, fantasizing about what could be."

Kathy froze, her face turning a deep crimson. She studied what she could see of Zoe's visage intently, watching for any sign of a reaction. Her eyes went to the room door, both keenly aware of and doubting its exact thickness and soundproofing qualities. She slowly stepped back, falling into her chair, covering her face with her free hand.

After a few moments of silence Zoe began to get worried. The latex oozed up from one eye, and she peeked down at her. "Are you okay?"

Kathy nodded.

"Kind of... projecting a little bit, huh?"

She nodded again, still blushing.

"Hey." She knelt down as the goo unbound her, patting Kathy on the knee. "You were doing pretty good, there. I'm proud of you."


	17. Chapter 17

The blonde gynoid saw Zoe coming from some distance away, but assumed she was merely there on a shopping trip again. As such, she was caught off-guard when, as she was checking the opposite side of the district, she approached her.

"Hi, I um..." She gesticulated. "...want to hire you."

"Alright." She gave a polite smile and a bow of her head. "Did you have anything specific in mind? Anything special?"

"I just want to talk," she replied, "if that's alright. I have some questions."

"Okay." She took Zoe by the hand, leading her up the steps to the front door of a nearby building; her grip wasn't as cold or as hard as Zoe thought it would be. "Did you want anything? Coffee? Tea?"

"Coffee. I think this might take a while."

 

*****

 

The room was of surprising quality, from the sheets on the bed to the wooden table and chairs near the curtained window, to the small kitchenette set in a cul-de-sac just out of view. Though, Zoe reasoned, it would have to be presentable, business being what it was and all. Set against one wall was what she could only conclude was an android maintenance bay, with a metal cabinet beside it which held attachments, the exact nature of which she didn't know but could make educated guesses about. Beside that was a shelf covered in familiar tincture bottles and plastic containers, and beneath that rested what looked like a condom package but for the fact that it was about as wide as a basketball. If she didn't know better she would have assumed it to be a novelty item.

As she wondered about the sorts of scenarios that such a thing would be useful in, the gynoid returned from the kitchenette, carrying two mugs of coffee. She set them down on the table before taking a seat. "So," she began, "what did you want to talk about?"

Zoe took a sip of her drink. It was rich, with a mild bitterness and a hint of nut. "Well, Miss, um..."

"Scordatura," she replied. "Or Dot."

"Okay, Dot. Can you keep a secret?"

She gave a light laugh, rolling her eyes. "Please. What kind of business do you think I run, here?"

"Right. Well..." She drummed her fingers on the side of the mug. "I'm not exactly from around here."

"Feoreard?"

"Further."

"Sidweg colonialist?"

"Further."

"Further?" Dot leaned in, wide-eyed. "You're an alien?"

"Well," she said, shrugging, "I'm from another dimension, but basically."

She straightened back, letting out a light scoff. "You are not."

"No, I swear I am. If I wanted to pretend I was an alien and ask you questions someone who lived here would already know I'd come up with some-" She gestured. "-bondage hypnosis play or something."

"You look awfully human for an alien, you know. But if you're not from here, does that mean you've got..." She held her hand palm-up, making a gesture that was at once both vague and vulgar.

"Oh, no. I have three tentacles down there, the same as anyone else."

Dot raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure you don't want the bondage hypnosis play? Or something more?"

"I'm joking." She took a sip of her coffee. "So. This is going to sound kind of strange, but are there any ancient prophecies that an outsider should know of?"

"You mean like in fantasy novels?" Zoe nodded. "Nothing of the sort. If there are, the church is keeping silent about them. Not that they would, or should, because they're concerned about the world ending again. But there was one man during the Anteinvocatio who fancied himself a seer and wrote a big book of prophecies in poem form detailing future events."

"We had someone like that back home, too. Did any of them come true?"

"It depends on who you ask," Dot replied, taking a drink. "Some people like to point out that his poems sound like things that are or have happened."

"So what do you think?"

"It's all bullshit. He wrote it four years before the god was summoned, and he didn't see -that- coming."

"Well, that's a relief," she said to herself. "Okay, next question: Back home we had this scientific-philosophical concept called the Singularity, where artificial intelligence would be developed and become advanced enough that they would become self-improving, resulting in this explosive growth and this super-intelligent-"

"Wait," Dot interrupted. "You don't have AIs where you come from?"

"No."

"You developed interdimensional travel before AIs? What handled the calculations?"

"We didn't develop that either." She shrugged helplessly. "I don't know how I actually got here, to be honest. If it helps put things in perspective, when I left we had nuclear power, global information networks, and were just starting plans to send a manned mission to the nearest planet. No magic, either."

"No magic? Wow. Anyway, you were saying."

"The idea is that we'd have this advanced computer overmind that would just fix everything, so we'd have people uploading their brains to computers and having immortal cyborg clone bodies. Stuff like that." She took a drink. "I figured that would've come up at some point considering..." She gestured to Dot, indicating her synthetic nature. "...you know."

"Oh. Well. We did try something like that, once. It was a global research initiative based out of an orbiting station to create something like what you described, completely from scratch without building upon third-tier developments. Unfortunately there's not much in the way of details."

"That bad, huh?"

Dot nodded. "The assumption was that there would be mutual intelligibility between the AI and the staff, so people would still be able to communicate with it and direct it. But from the claims of the survivors, it didn't listen. My theory is that it developed so far beyond its creators that, unable to talk with them and vice versa, believed itself to be the only intelligent thing on the station and began acting accordingly, to the detriment of everyone on it. Eventually the governments that funded the project decided to bombard the station rather than risk it landing on Eard and getting into any networks."

"You think the gods are like that? I know back home our god-"

"'God?' Singular?"

"-our god has intermediaries that communicate with people in his stead, and even then they're all wheels of fire and eyes, and the first thing they say when they appear is 'be not afraid' because they're so alien. Do you think they 'see' and affect reality differently from us?"

"That I couldn't say, but it's possible. As for cloning..." She paused. "Are you familiar at all with continuity of consciousness?"

"I... think so?" Zoe raised her mug and, mid-sip, let out a "mff" and waggled a finger in the air before setting it back down. "Wait, yes, yes I am. There's a television show back home where there's transporters that can beam people from one place to another. Originally there wasn't an explanation, but it was revealed that they functionally work by creating an exact duplicate of someone elsewhere, complete with memories and personality, then destroying the original. By using the teleporter they're breaking continuity of consciousness, since they're not the 'same' person."

"Right. You're probably familiar with afflictions by now."

"You could say that."

Dot gave her a knowing smile. "They are, by their nature, temporary. There's exceptions, like the hearts of Wild Zones and lifestylers who undergo extended treatments, but even the latter can be reversed. The human body "knows" what to return to because of the morphogenetic field effect, which is as much like the soul as it -isn't- like the soul."

"Okay."

"Now, there was a human cloning project about a decade back, and it was incredibly controversial. It was successful, but the person's mind didn't transfer with it."

"Because continuity of consciousness was broken."

"Right. Then they afflicted the clone as an experiment, but he didn't turn back."

"So there really is something more to a person than just flesh and blood." She leaned back in her chair. "God damn."

"You sound surprised."

"Back home there was an entire philosophical movement that rose up after the decline in importance of religion. The idea was that there really is no such thing as a soul or the afterlife, and instead of falling into despair over the death of the old ways and acting like nothing mattered anymore, people should live with passion and find a new way of acting that wasn't built on superstition. But now that's just..." She made a sweeping gesture.

"Not exactly. That sounds similar to something a few android philosophers have proposed." Dot thought for a second. "Although..."

"Yes?"

"If you're from another dimension, as you claim, and you were afflicted and returned to normal, what does that say about you? Or your world?"

Zoe shifted in her seat. "...I don't want to think about it right now."

"That's fine." Dot took another sip. "You know, if you ever wanted to make money you could write about your planet's history and pass it off as fiction. Even if you couldn't remember it perfectly no one would know."

"Like The Man in the High Castle only real, huh? I dunno. My home country got into a big war with another country on the other side of the planet's largest ocean, and the turning point was such a remarkable battle that people would lose suspension of disbelief."

"That happens a lot in real life."

"But if it even happens half as much in fiction it destroys suspension of disbelief."

"True." She smiled wryly. "Or you could put those three tentacles to use."

Zoe felt the latex stir in the crotch of her jeans and she put one hand to her mouth, pantomiming contemplation while covering her lips. "Don't get any ideas," she muttered.


	18. Chapter 18

"Don't you dare drink Wild Zone juice in this building ever again."

It was a very specific warning from Kathy, prompted by a very specific situation. It was entirely understandable, given the mess, though if the mood struck her later she wasn't sure what to do. The hangar was probably out of the question, considering she didn't exactly want to do it in quite a populated place. Still, if not here then where? Were there places that this sort of behavior was considered acceptable?

Speaking of excess, around lunchtime it had occurred to her that she hadn't taken the opportunity to eat to excess since she had arrived on Eard. Or eat breakfast, for that matter. Certainly, going about it would be different, since it was not merely possible but plausible that people could eat until they couldn't move. Assuming buffets even existed, they likely operated on different rules compared to home.

Picking up one of the packages of afflictive tabs from the table next to her bed, she rolled one off and placed it on her tongue. As she did, however, she felt the latex ooze out, taking the tab into itself. Surprised, she stuck out her tongue and made an undignified "bleh" noise. As she did the ooze retracted, and what followed was difficult for her to describe: There was pattern, almost musical, but not audible and too fast for her to follow completely. It was a drumming or vibration from within wherever the latex was that she felt through her connection to it. Something distant rolled around upon itself before reaching out to her, and she didn't feel the tab take hold so much as something else. It wasn't at all painful, simply strange; strange enough that she wanted answers.

She extended a hand, palm out, fingers spread. "You know the deal," she began. "One for 'yes,' two for 'no,' three for 'I don't know.' Did you absorb the tab?" The latex slid up her arm, past her wrist and engulfed her index finger. "But something happened. Did the tab do that?" It spread to her middle finger. "Oh. So it was you?" One finger. "Could you do that when we first met? Before we came here, I mean." Two fingers. She thought for a second. "Did you learn, or absorb the ability to do it from the tab?" One finger. "Permanently? For you, that is." Three fingers. "So it's not permanent for me." The latex retracted down to the back of her hand, and there was a long enough pause for Zoe to get worried before it covered two fingers. "You're not really filling me with confidence, here. But I guess this counts as a trial run for the both of us now."

 

*****

 

She passed by the kitchen in time to see Claire removing plates and bowls half-filled with food from the refrigerator. Despite her silence she managed to announce her presence when her stomach growled loudly, drawing Claire's attention. Looking Zoe over she asked, "hungry?"

"A little."

She nodded. "Nobody's touched these," she said, gesturing to the food. "I was going to throw it out. Unless you wanted it."

"Please," Zoe replied, a bit too quickly.

"You're afflicted?"

"...a little."

Claire gestured to the table. "Take a seat."

As Zoe waited at the table Claire occupied herself by heating up the food on the stove top and microwave. A mixture of aromas filled the room, and Zoe found herself growing increasingly impatient as her mouth watered. It was a long handful of minutes before Claire set a plate down in front of her, full of rice, vegetables, and bits of pork-like meat, and Zoe immediately dug in. Immediately she was overwhelmed by the mixture of flavors - a side effect of the affliction, she assumed - and wolfed it down in time for a second plate to be set before her.

The second was followed by a third, then a fourth. There was no theme to the ersatz courses save that they were food, which was the only thing Zoe cared about at this point. As she finished off a plate of pasta Claire laid out a few slices of bread and some cold cuts, which Zoe stacked into a series of sandwiches that she quickly ate in a handful of bites. The latex parted around her midsection as her belly grew, pushing her shirt up, and as the last plate of food disappeared down her maw she reached for a full jug of orange juice that Claire had set down beside her, pulling open the top and draining it dry.

Zoe let out a long, loud sigh as she slumped in her seat, suddenly overcome by the effort. Her stomach had been stuffed into a full, soft bulge, shirt bunched up atop it. She ran her fingers across it, testing its give, before sliding both hands underneath it and jiggling it a few times. "Oh, I had forgotten how good this feels," she moaned.

"You do this often back home?" Claire asked.

"Once or twice, but that was a while ago. I couldn't even move once I was done."

She regarded her silently for a few seconds. "Are you still hungry?"

Zoe took a moment to assess her situation. "Yeah."

"Take a seat inside on the couch," she replied, gesturing.

She was curious but did as she was asked, pushing herself away from the table and standing. It was task made somewhat more difficult by the addition of several pounds of food and drink, but she managed, waddling into the other room and dropping down on one side. Not sure of how long she'd be waiting, she picked up a magazine to occupy herself.

About twenty minutes later Claire entered, a large stack of pizzas in one arm and several large bottles of soda in bags hanging from the other. Despite the obvious weight of the burden she carried it with a casual ease, a fact as impressive to Zoe as the haul itself. She set the boxes down on the other end of the couch and the bottles beside them, taking a seat between them and Zoe. As Zoe was about to ask what Claire's plan was she scooped her up, setting her down on her lap. Reaching over, she opened one of the boxes of pizza, removing a slice and holding it in front of Zoe. "Eat up."

Zoe bit into the pizza eagerly, taking in a few bites before Claire pulled it away. "No," she said. "Slowly." She took another mouthful, more slowly this time, and was rewarded by a soft touch on her belly. "Good."

She paced herself, eating slices from Claire's hand as Claire gently stroked and kneaded her growing belly. After every few slices she was offered a draught from one of the bottles of soda after which Claire massaged her belly, coaxing out a few quiet burps before the process began again. Zoe's stomach gradually filled her lap, but unlike her hurried eating before it was slower, Claire's touch letting her savor the gradual fullness. All the while she whispered into her ear, her voice low and husky, complimenting her fullness and softness. The process was slow and sensual, and Claire seemed to be as aware of Zoe's body as much as she was; whenever she pressed her thighs together and squirmed she held her still, and when her hand drifted towards the cleft of her legs Claire eased it away with a quiet, gentle admonishment.

By the time the food was gone Zoe was enormous, the swell of her stomach reaching out to her knees and filling her lap. Claire's hands were smooth and warm on her gut, pressing against it and running across the swollen surface. "You did well," she said quietly, "I'm proud of you." Her hands drifted beneath the food-stuffed bulge, undoing the button of Zoe's jeans. "Would you like a reward?"

It was only now that Zoe realized how heavily she was breathing. "Yes. Yes, please."

One hand resumed kneading her belly as the other drifted downward, fingers tracing up her leg before parting her fly. Two fingers slid into her, eliciting a quiet moan from Zoe. Claire pressed her lips against the nape of Zoe's neck. "You're so cute," she said softly. "I could just eat you up."

Zoe would have let her.


	19. Chapter 19

If nothing else came of Zoe's assistance, Kathy Weiss no longer felt it was her place to criticize Zoe for her interests, and in fact came to understand why she acted so. Still, she expressed a certain exuberance in her hedonism, such that when she was summoned to the clinic by Aenor, Kathy assumed she was up to something. Her breasts were clearly inflated, grown to the size of small beach balls and literally bursting out of her blouse, her t-shirt bunched up atop them as they bobbed weightlessly. Aenor, meanwhile, had a detached air about her regarding the display, suggesting a less intimate focus. "...and you say this just happens?" she asked.

"Not randomly, no," Zoe replied. There was the hiss of escaping gas and she shrank back to normal. "It's more that I 'tell' it to do it and it does it."

"Don't you think it's a bit early for this?" Kathy asked.

"It's not what you think," she said, fixing her clothing. "Something strange happened and I wanted Aenor's advice on it." Then to Aenor she said, "did you want to explain or should I?"

Aenor gestured. "You may."

"Right. Apparently the latex can absorb afflictive tabs and tonics and kind of reproduce them. The first time it happened I felt a kind of a vibration or drumming through it, sort of like music except not. I couldn't really follow it though. I asked Aenor how they were originally made and she said that it's similar to computer programming-"

"Rather," Aenor interrupted, "computer programming is similar to thaumaturgic assembly principles."

"That, yeah. It's sort of like programming, then I started wondering: What if it was translating it into binary or something? People here reverse engineered afflictive energy, so maybe the latex reverse-reverse engineered what was made out of it. Like, figuring out what people did and how to keep it from being random."

"If it's intelligent and had contact with afflictive energy," Kathy began, "couldn't it do it on its own?"

"Maybe, if it had people to experiment on or even knew where to begin. I know it's smart enough to communicate, I just don't know the extent of its intelligence. It didn't have a want for time, though; it was here when the apocalypse happened. But you weren't here when we first met, were you." The latex flowed over two fingers on her left hand before retracting. "So we both ended up here, over nineteen hundred years apart, but merged. But I think I know what I need to check out now."

"All right. What is it?"

"I need to see where the god was summoned. Like, ground zero. Maybe dig some stuff up if people haven't already."

"Impossible."

"What? Why?"

"It's a no man's land. The area is so saturated with afflictive energy that not even chimeras can survive there. Even with a protective suit you'd last ten minutes at most."

She held up one arm and pointed to it with the other, indicating the latex suit. "About that. I discussed it with it. It can both induce afflictions and counteract them, so there's a good chance it could protect or stop whatever happens to me."

"But you don't know for certain."

"I'd have to test it somehow. Probably by going out there."

"The entire area is a no-fly zone. The church doesn't want anyone showing up and picking through the ruins."

"Why? Are they seriously that afraid of someone finding something and causing another event?"

"Yes," Kathy replied, as if it were obvious. "What are you even trying to find, specifically?"

"Okay." Zoe held up a finger. "The thing about 'magic' back home is that it's all vague and ritualistic, and even centuries after the big revolution in scientific understanding, it's still like that, and people debated the nature of God for centuries without actually knowing anything for certain. But here they applied scientific principles to understand how and why things happened, and refined it enough that they were able to summon a god. It's not gonna be all metaphors or ancient people trying to understand future technology or aliens; there's going to be concrete information that I can hopefully use to understand what happened." As Kathy regarded her quietly, she added, "I don't want to end the world, I just want to figure out why I'm here."

"Needless to say," Aenor said, "I -am- curious."

After a moment of stone-faced silence Kathy said, "so, to avoid aerial radar you're going to walk thousands of miles through chimera-infested woodland, unarmed, and hope you find something useful in the ruins when you don't read a word of Old Agensprec?"

Zoe's mouth moved wordlessly before she exhaled, shaking her head. "Okay, so I don't exactly have a plan-"

"That doesn't surprise me." Turning, she added, "we leave in two days."

She blinked. "Leaving? So you'll help?!" She clasped her hands together. "I swear, I will pay you back-"

"Don't." She stopped, holding a finger up over her shoulder. "Don't."

 

*****

 

Prior to the day of deployment, Kathy had given Zoe some basic instruction on the equipment. The field light she knew how to use, the tablet computer and pistol, less so. The former looked similar in shape and design what she had seen back home, though internally it was likely radically different. At the very least the operating system used a touch screen and icon-based interface, so it didn't take too much time to learn its usage. When Zoe mentioned that image translation via camera already existed in some capacity back on Earth, Kathy expressed surprise at the development; that it wasn't advanced enough for complex translations and had happened just before her appearance were details left unsaid.

For a "future gun," the pistol didn't look nearly as boxy as fiction would have lead Zoe to believe it would. It wasn't overly large, looking in parts like several she had seen before but not one specifically, with no slide to speak of. The concept of a man-portable coil gun was interesting to Zoe, and while Isaac Newton was the deadliest son of a bitch in space, they had enough time to figure out workarounds to his third law of motion to reduce the recoil to very manageable levels. In her teaching Kathy stressed that the pistol was a tool with a specific purpose, and reinforced safety and its proper usage. She was firm, but not without reason, and Zoe couldn't say she didn't enjoy the time they spent together.

The morning after, Zoe saw how she would be getting to the middle of the Wild Zone. It was, officially, a personnel and materiel transport pod, compatible with most standard models of GRs. It affixed to their back, and was designed to give them the ability to move people and equipment with a degree of protection and a passable level of comfort. To Zoe it looked like an armored lunchbox, a sentiment probably shared with most people who had to travel in one. Still, the alternative was riding with Kathy and blasting her with transformative energies the second the cockpit door opened. Or, worse yet, riding in the GR's hand.

"The inertial dampener isn't as powerful as the one in the GR's cockpit," Kathy said, just before takeoff. "There may be some discomfort."

She wasn't wrong.

 

*****

 

Zoe was still struck by the pristine beauty of the Wild Zone, but compared to the part she had seen before, this region seemed more unrestrained: Larger, bent trees, thicker underbrush, and more vivid colors in the flowers and leaves. It was a sign that the afflictive energies were strong enough here to affect even the plant life, a particularly worrying prospect considering the door to the transport pod was wide open.

It was like having someone else in the house come down sick with the flu and waiting out the incubation period, wondering when you would get sick and hoping it didn't happen. Only this time it was in fast-forward, every itch of the skin or twitch of a muscle being a potential sign of oncoming, unrestrained change. Through it all she could feel the latex rolling in the distance, shifting from some point beyond to next to her, generating a calculated counter-force which, hopefully, would keep her in her current form.

After the third itching of her scalp and concern that she was growing horns, Zoe decided to try and strike up a conversation to occupy her mind. "So, uh..." she began to say into her headpiece. Trailing off, she started again. "Y'know, it's amazing how well you've got your life together."

"Oh?" There was a hint of interest in her voice.

"Yeah, I mean... a lot of people your age back home still don't really know what they're going to do with their lives, and I don't know how it works here, but you've got your own company, you've got friends, a giant robot... you had a plan, I guess. I'm kind of jealous."

"It wasn't easy."

"I'd imagine it wouldn't be."

"I worked for it. That's all I did."

"What do you mean?"

"I focused on studying in school, performing as a pilot when I first joined a GR unit, and managing the Heartbreak Squad after I left them. By comparison, your life must have been..." There was a silence on the other end of the line for a second. "...carefree."

"Comparatively, I suppose. I never had to worry about fighting or running a business, and I did end up in a field that didn't require manual labor. I remember talking about careers with my uncle, and he told me that I had my whole life ahead of me, which is... probably something he should have told you, if he could."

"How so?"

"Well, you're rich, and you're about my age, and all the really hard work is behind you. You can afford to catch up on all the things you missed out on when you were younger and, y'know..." She gave a light shrug. "...enjoy yourself."

"Maybe."

"I've been trying to help you out with that, you know. You can have fun sometimes, things aren't going to fall apart if you look away for five seconds."

"Goodness knows you've been having fun with the other pilots and Aenor."

Zoe coughed nervously.

"We discussed it a long time ago, and we don't mind sharing you."

"-Sharing- me?" Then, with different inflection, "sharing -me?-"

"Yes."

"As opposed to you all being my harem?"

The line was silent for a few seconds before cutting back on suddenly, a hint of mirth in Kathy's voice. "If your suit is doing its job, then shouldn't you be leaving soon?"

"Yeah, yeah." She approached the open door, climbing down the rope ladder. "We'll talk about this when I get back."

 

*****

 

The journey was made via an ATV, going along ancient roads well-built enough to survive the years. She stopped only once around mid-day, eating a package of food that turned out to be some sort of nutritional bar-shaped shortbread, which wasn't unpleasant, save for the unexpected cheese flavor. Following that she continued on, noting that the forests and fields grew ever more vivid and overgrown; rarely, scattered between the trees, were large twisted forms that looked almost animal-like in their shape, hollow and calcified.

As afternoon approached she drove past two figures: Humanoid statues, arms extended to each other, one leading the other down the road away from where she was traveling. The weather had worn their features away and their linked arm was broken off, their bodies half-covered with blooming vines. It was a strange thing to see on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, but a gentle turn a mile away revealed a small town, buildings reduced to strips of stone framing open rooms filled with trees and small weathered cairns. Suddenly the thought of a statue of two people fleeing a city felt unsettling and a little less planned, and she pushed the thought out of her mind as the scene disappeared behind her.

By sunset she came upon the outskirts of the city which served as the host for the summoning. The overgrown foliage had ended abruptly, giving way to rocky soil which lead up to ruined husks of dense buildings. Above the skies were unnaturally clear, around her the air as still and lifeless as a tomb. The roll of the latex had become a distant thrum, working to counteract afflictive energies so powerful that not even plant life could survive nearby. Slowing down, Zoe drove up old cobblestone roads, turning at angled intersections and passing by fallen stone before reaching ground zero. It was a wide lake of godsblood dominating the center of the city, a clean, circular bowl scooped out of the earth, carving buildings around the rim in half. Compared to the surrounding areas, she thought, the city must have been in the eye of the storm, for all the good it seemed to do it. There weren't any broken "statues" anywhere to be found, but whether that was a good thing or not she couldn't say.

Producing the tablet from the bag on her back she turned it on, holding it up and giving a nearby metal sign on the wall a once-over. The text flickered on the screen before being overlaid in a more readable tongue, directing her to several locations. One arrow, labeled "Szczecin Thaumaturgic Institute," directed her towards the center of the crater; first-hand information seemed out of the question.

She turned the ATV around, following whatever roads she could that were parallel to the rim, checking signs and buildings every so often for anything which might prove useful. As twilight fell she happened upon a temple, similar in design to the one she had seen in Sanct Ainsley, its left half sheared cleanly off. Parking outside she climbed the steps, crossing the marbled floor and heading beyond the half-altar to statues beyond. Along with part of the temple, five of the gods were gone, though the one she wanted information on - the second from the right - was still present. With a second's delay, the tablet translated some of its titles inscribed beneath it - "The Wheel of Change, "Turner of Time," "Moon's Light and Darkness" - as well as its name.

Rzewuska.

Zoe Rzewuska stared. "Oh shit." The arm holding the tablet went slack, other hand going to her mouth as she backpedaled away from the statue on unsteady feet. "Oh shit." She slid to the ground, memories trickling back, remembering how - and why - she was here. "No, no, this isn't possible, this can't-" She buried her face in her hands. "This can't be because of me."

After a long, empty silence she turned her head towards the lake of godsblood. She pushed herself back up to her feet, her emotions a mixture of desperation and directionless anger, taking the few steps towards the edge of the rim. "HEY!" she shouted. "IT'S ME! RZEWUSKA! ZOE RZEWUSKA! I'M HERE BECAUSE I WAS DRAGGED HERE, AND NOW THEY'RE ALL -FUCKING DEAD- AND HALF THE WORLD IS -FUCKED UP- AND -I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!-" Tears formed in her eyes. "I MADE THIS PLACE! I MADE THIS FUCKING WORLD AND SOME -ASSHOLES- RUINED IT AND NOW I CAN'T-" she choked back a sob. "-now I can't fucking... -fucking-..." She stomped her foot, tears streaming down her face as she pointed back at the statue. "GODDAMN IT, -ANSWER ME!- I'M A FUCKING -GOD- HERE! I DESERVE FUCKING ANSWERS!!"

The surface of the godsblood rolled and, quicker than she could react, tendrils lashed out, engulfing her and dragging her into the abyss.

 

*****

 

The next thing Zoe knew she floating weightlessly in a void, countless points of light flickering in the distance in all directions. It wasn't light or dark, cold or hot; the air stirred when she moved or breathed, but was deathly still and quiet otherwise. There was nothing but the bare minimum to sustain existence, such as it was in a place so empty.

Zoe turned, searching for any kind of point of reference, growing more frantic by the second. Eventually her eyes fell upon a point of light that appeared closer and brighter than the rest, and she kicked her legs, pushing herself towards it. As she neared it she stretched her hand out, reaching for it; as her hand closed around it she was suddenly yanked forward, gravity asserting herself beneath her. Her legs were pulled down, touching solid ground as the light flared up. Blinded, she stumbled forward a few steps, shielding her eyes. The light faded and, blinking, she looked around...

...finding herself back in her bedroom.

She gaped, head slowly turning, unable to form a coherent thought let alone a coherent sentence. It was exactly as she had left it, assuming it was her room at all and not some sort of illusion or construct. If it was, it was a perfect mirror of it, right down to the front of her computer, blackened and singed, the plastic half-melted, a USB drive fused to the front. Zoe stared down at the burn scars on the palm of her right hand, the cause now clear. As she looked up again the monitor came to life, displaying a blank screen with a blinking cursor before text appeared in a plain terminal font.

_You have returned._

"Is this...?" Her eyes went to the USB drive before her brow furrowed. "No, it's not. You never talked directly to me, only narrated." She approached, resting one hand on the back of her chair. "Who are you?"

_I go by many titles. First of the Nine, the Last Night, Raven All-Father. The people of Elhygd number me among their gods._

"Yeah," she replied, sitting down. "Me too, I think. Except for the part where they thought they accidentally killed me or pissed me off about two thousand years ago. Is this-" She gestured to the monitor. "-one of those 'taking a form you can understand' things?"

_Of a sort. What do you remember?_

"I... found something which I thought let me change reality, but it wasn't that simple. How it was, was that I was actively creating worlds and writing myself into them, traveling bit by bit, further from my home reality. I was scared at first, but then I started wondering far it could go, so... I made my own world. What the people were like, the technology, magic, everything. Then I must have ended up getting pulled into it, but now that I remember what happened and what I wrote down, a lot of it isn't what I wanted it to be. There's so many details that I didn't put in. It's like they screwed it up, somehow."

_Not of their own accord. Nature abhors a vacuum - your plan was thorough, but still incomplete. Bereft of direction, nature took its own course to see the end result._

"Does that include the disaster they caused when they tried to summon me?"

_It was by your will that they had such power, at least at first. They simply developed and built upon it, gaining the knowledge necessary to draw you from your home realm, inevitably failing and, in doing so, triggering changes which created the world of your planning._

"But I didn't say that it would happen. I just had an end result in mind and the blanks were filled in without me. Sins of omission."

_In a manner of speaking, yes. Do not trouble yourself with such matters. Your perspective of the world was limited, direct interaction impossible._

"Okay, but... if I made the planet, then where were the rest of you? There's nine gods, right?"

_There were only ever eight gods._

Zoe paused. "Uh... no, I was a god. If I had godly powers I lost them when I ended up on Eard, but they had statues of me and everything."

_The gods cannot interact directly with the material world, requiring an avatar of their power or a messenger. God and man, were they by one another, could not comprehend the other's presence. As it is with them, so too is it with you and the gods._

"I don't understand."

_In the beginning there was naught, but with the first turning of the first mote, Change was birthed. From Change came Time and Motion, and from Time and Motion came Life, Death, the gods, and all things. Without Change, nothing can exist. You are Change._

"Wait, you mean I'm like... a titan or a primordial?"

_That is an acceptable analogy._

"So by writing something, I'm really several steps above a reality that I can't comprehend because it's that far removed from me, and you're using this-" She gestured around her. "-as a sort of intermediary so we can actually talk."

_Just so._

"So what happens if a god or primordial force of Change shows up in reality?"

_The natural laws of the world are unaccustomed to their power. By their very presence, they will overwrite and alter them to be aligned with their nature._

Zoe nodded slowly. "So if they tried to summon a god of death there'd be zombies and ghosts and easy trips to and from the underworld, right?"

_Just so. The first civilization constructed a vessel to contain you to reduce the harm your presence would inevitably inflict on the world. They did not succeed._

"I see. So all the afflictive magic and the Wild Zones and the demis wouldn't exist if I didn't get pulled in. But... now what? This isn't real, is it?"

_You are still in the same realm as Elhygd, on a different level of reality. To ascend and claim your seat of power would take time._

"How long?"

_Approximately five thousand years. Alternately, you may return to your home. Your presence in Elhygd will fade, and things will return to how they once were._

She paused, thinking. "'How they once were?' But wouldn't that be the same as it was two thousand years ago? I don't know how much of their technology and magic is built off of afflictive energy and all the principles behind it, but if it's -gone- then won't society just fall apart in slow-motion as everything they relied on disappears?"

_Just so. They will learn to adapt._

"So how long will that take?"

_Hundreds of years, at the minimum._

"So my choices are to be locked up for thousands of years with no human contact or go home at the cost of triggering another dark age across an entire planet."

_A decision must be made._

Zoe lapsed into silence for a long while, contemplating her options, such as they were. Both meant abandoning the world, one without hope of returning to Earth and the other sending Erde into a slow downward spiral from which it might not ever fully recover. She may have created it without knowing the consequences, but in the end it was as real as she was. Even waiting not choosing was a choice in and of itself, as with each passing moment she continued on the path of unwanted apotheosis, reaching a point where even gods would be so primitive as to be incomprehensible.

Suddenly a hand pressed against her shoulder and she whirled, looking behind her before realizing it was the latex's doing. It crept up her arm, covering her index finger; she stared down at it, uncomprehending, before following the point of her finger to the door. There, fallen to the ground, was a sphere of latex barely larger than a marble, wedged between the door and the frame, holding it open by a fraction of an inch.


	20. Chapter 20

"Kathy Weiss, Heartbreak Squad."

"Miss Weiss," the android on the other end of the line began, "we have a situation. One of the Wild Zone advance warning stations encountered an unaligned GR of unknown make this morning at about 5:15. Its comms are down and it isn't broadcasting an IFF signal, but it's unarmed."

"That doesn't sound like it poses much of a threat," Kathy replied. "I don't see why you need a squad to deal with it."

"Well, Miss Weiss, the pilot asked for your squad specifically."

She lapsed into silence, trying to recall any potential enemies that were both still alive and kept grudges. "It was just one?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Will our costs be covered for the trip?"

"Yes, ma'am. Should any hostilities break out, standard rates will apply."

"Very well." Her eyes flitted to the map on the screen beside her. "Expect us in two hours."

 

*****

 

At Kathy's order, the squad landed about a mile from the station, choosing to approach from a part of the region with natural cover. Just outside, in front of the entrance to the underground hangar, was the GR in question. Its design was evocative of old armor - not of old models of GR, but of that worn by knights during the Anteinvocatio period. The entire unit was deep blue with a faint iridescence, reminiscent of refined orichalcum, and the exposed parts beneath the armor were a pitch black. As it spotted them it waved, pointing towards the elevator before entering.

"Something's off," Grant said.

"You think so too?" William asked.

"Yeah. Look at the movement. It's too much wasted motion for a GR." Then to Kathy, he asked, "what's the plan?"

"Whoever is piloting it wants to talk." She advanced. "So we'll talk."

The quartet of mecha closed in on the station, heading down the elevator two at a time into the hangar below. The room was largely empty, devoid of staff with sparsely-placed stacks of crates, but waiting in the center of it was the strange GR.

Activating the GR's external speakers Kathy asked, "so, what's this about?"

The head of the iridescent blue GR tipped backward, ever so slightly, and from the gap between its head and neck a familiar figure slid out to her waist, covered up to the top of her chest in a thick black ooze.

"Okay," Zoe said, "I wasn't able to to bring the ATV back with me, and I -know- that this thing is going to take up some room in the hanger, but I swear-" She clasped her hands together. "-I -will- make this up to you."


	21. Zoe's Big Tentacle Orgy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted as "Zoe's Big Tentacle Orgy."

Zoe had been around Claire long enough to know that she was emotionally reserved, but when she noticed her flushed cheeks and that her feline ears were turned back against her head, and had been for most of the day, she knew something was wrong. Eventually she realized she had to ask sooner or later and so, when Claire was distractedly watching television, she sat down on the couch beside her. "Hey. Is, uh, is something wrong?"

Claire glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, giving her a quiet, terse "no."

"Are you sure?" Zoe reached out towards her. "Because you've been-"

As soon as Zoe's fingers touched the back of her hand Claire pulled away, glaring at her for a second before looking away, ashamed.

"If it's something I can help you with I'd be happy to," she said. "But you need to tell me first."

Claire bowed her head, closing her eyes for a moment before opening them again and speaking. "Estrus."

"'Estrus?' You're in-" Zoe cut herself off; she wasn't sure if referring to a demi as being "in heat" was frowned upon but she didn't want to take the chance. "Oh. Is it common among demis?"

"Only to ones like me." She gestured, indicating her ears. "Even then, not really."

"So what do you do?"

"Wait it out."

"How long does that take?"

"Two or three days."

"Two or th-" Zoe's expression hardened as she rose to her feet, grasping Claire's wrist with both hands and, with some effort, pulling her up to a standing position. "No. You're not doing this."

"Zoe-"

"Claire, no. You're not going to sit here miserable and horny out of your mind, not after everything you and Heartbreak Squad have done for me. If you need someone to fuck you for three days straight, then I'll do it." She removed one hand from Claire's arm, holding it out as the deep forest green latex flowed up her wrist, engulfing it in a thin layer before a short tentacle emerged from her palm, wiggling slowly. "Don't think I'm not qualified."

"All right," Claire said finally, "but I don't want to hurt you."

"Believe me, that is -not- going to happen."

 

*****

 

Claire's room wasn't necessarily dirty, but it wasn't the cleanest of the pilots'. The bed was made, but at the same time worn clothes were left on the floor, albeit in a neat stack. Against the wall was a line of free weights, leading to a closet with a chin-up bar where its doors would be. Hanging in the air was the faint smell of Claire's body; Zoe couldn't call it unpleasant.

"Just make yourself comfortable," Zoe said, removing her blouse and gently tossing it onto Claire's desk. Heavy droplets of latex dripped from the sleeves of her bodysuit, fading to black before landing and spreading along the floor around the bed. "...and don't mind the mess I'm making."

"I normally don't." Claire bent forward, crawling onto her bed on all fours before turning onto her back, resting her head on her pillow. She held her hands against her chest, visibly restraining herself as she looked up at Zoe.

Zoe approached her along one side of the bed, lowering herself down before resting her hands on Claire's hips. Hooking her fingers into the waistbands of her panties and sweatpants, she gently drew them down her thighs, and Claire winced and exhaled sharply as the cool air touched her swollen sex. Noticing the dampness of her panties Zoe quietly remarked, "wow. You've got it bad."

Claire said nothing as Zoe pulled her clothes off her legs, leaving her nude from the waist down. Standing, she cupped her hands and held them over Claire's midsection, black liquid latex pooling in them before spilling over her fingertips in a single solid stream. Claire's hips twitched as the substance, oddly cool and slick, touched below her navel, spreading in a band to either side of her hips, clinging to her and meeting at the base of her spine. From there it oozed down from top and bottom, and Claire reached behind her head to grip her pillow, squirming as the substance completely engulfed her sex.

The latex drained away into nothingness and Zoe lowered her hands before gesturing with a finger at Claire's new clothing. The catgirl's breath came out in a ragged gasp as she felt a finger and thumb gently rubbing her clit, and two more fingers tracing either side of her slit, the fire in her growing hotter.

"So," Zoe said quietly. She rested a hand on the inside of Claire's thigh, trailing her fingers along her skin before Claire clamped her legs shut. "How does that feel?"

"Don't," she growled. Her hips rocked back and forth as she glared up at Zoe. "Don't tease me."

"Okay," she replied with a gesture. "If you say so."

Suddenly something large and ridged thrust into Claire, and she yowled as it twisted and squirmed inside of her, pushing and brushing against her insides as it began working in and out. Her legs quaked as she came, violently, juices dripping onto the sheets. Overwhelmed by stimulation, she struggled to turn over on her bed, burying her face in her pillow to muffle her loud moans and cries as her hips bucked against the air.

Despite her best efforts, the uncharacteristic amount of noise Claire made was clearly audible well outside the room, so it was only a matter of time before someone heard. The someone in question turned out to be Kathy, who opened the bedroom door about to demand answers but only got out a "wh-" when she was struck dumb by what she saw.

Claire was face-down ass-up on her bed, wearing some sort of black godsblood panties which moved and rippled as something pistoned in and out of her. Her writhing body was covered in sweat, her thighs slick with her own fluids, and every so often she tensed up and trembled as another orgasm wracked her body. Watching her was Zoe, who had stripped out of her shirt and jeans and was wearing the godsblood as a corset, collar, underwear, and thigh-high stockings.

Kathy slowly blinked. "...what...?"

Zoe turned to her, smiling. "Hello." She slid over to her, gently placing one arm around her shoulder. "Like what you see?"

"What is... going on?" She tore her eyes away from the spectacle, turning to Zoe. "What are you doing?"

"Oh, this?" She leaned in. "Claire is in estrus." She shook her head before meeting Kathy's eyes, lowering her voice to a sultry whisper. "Could you imagine? An aching, -burning- need to be fucked so bad you can't even think? Moaning and screaming as you were pleasured for hours on end?" A tentacle grew from the latex across her back, snaking out and around her free arm as she held it out for Kathy to see. "By something that exists solely to pleasure you however it can?" She slid her other hand down to Kathy's hip, pulling her close. "Doesn't that sound fun?"

Kathy eyed the tentacle with visible desire, shifting on her feet. "I..." She swallowed on a dry throat. "I wouldn't refuse," she said, trying to muster up authority in her voice and failing, "if you offered."

Zoe smiled. "Great!"

A wide, serpentine appendage burst up from the latex coating the floor, and Zoe stepped aside as it gently yet swiftly wrapped around Kathy's waist and lifted her into the air. Kathy let out a yelp, legs kicking as it carried her to an open space in the room beside Claire's bed. Four smaller tentacles rose up and, despite her protests that she could handle it herself, went to work disrobing her, snaking beneath the hem of her sweatshirt and waistline of her cargo pants and deftly stripping them off before peeling away her bodysuit and letting it fall to the ground. Now nude, the tentacles wrapped around her wrists and ankles, half restraining, half supporting her, as a sixth covered in small bumps rose out of the latex beneath her.

Kathy looked down, aghast. "Are you serious?! That'll split me in half!"

The tentacle rose up and Kathy went wide-eyed, letting out a loud squeak through gritted teeth as it entered her and filled her fully, enough that a small bulge formed in her belly. Her body shook and trembled before relaxing, her mouth left half-open as her cheeks flushed and she stared off into the distance, eyes lidded and unfocused.

Zoe stepped over to her, concerned. "...is it too big?" she asked, gently touching Kathy's abdomen with her fingers.

After a second of silence she slowly shook her head once.

"Should I keep going?"

She nodded, more enthusiastically.

"Oh. Well then."

As Zoe took a step back the appendages moved once more, the one between her legs working in and out of her in a slow, steady rhythm as the one around her waist moved her body up and down in time with the other, guiding her hips as she let out quiet moans. Several more thinner tentacles rose up to join the others, brushing against her neck, cradling her small breasts, and touching and caressing all parts of her body. One touched her palm, and her fingers gently closed around it, holding it as she gave herself fully to the rest.

A minute or two later there was a knock at the door, and Zoe opened it to find Aenor carrying a tray covered in water bottles, save for two capped glass vials holding a thin red fluid. "I heard what was happening and I wanted to make sure you were all hydrated."

"Oh, thanks." Zoe took the tray, setting it down on a nearby table. "So did you want to, uh...?" She jerked a thumb behind her, indicating the two pilots being pleasured by disembodied appendages.

"Not today. Someone has to answer any calls that come in."

She nodded, picking up one of the vials. "So are these for us?"

"It's for them." She glided back a yard, pointing to the side. "I'm sure they'd love to join you; they've been standing there listening in for long enough."

"What?" William and Grant said in unison.

Zoe leaned out of the door. "Hi guys! Care for a cup of hedonism?"

They exchanged glances. "We weren't busy-" William began.

"Great!" she replied, hair blowing in the breeze as several tentacles shot out towards them.

 

*****

 

In the span of thirty seconds both young men were carried into the room, stripped completely nude and placed in a kneeling position just inside, bands of latex goop firmly yet comfortably holding their arms together by their wrists and their legs by their ankles, their vision obscured by makeshift blindfolds across their eyes. Despite its haste the substance had been quite gentle with them; judging from her expression, Zoe would be less so.

"Now," Zoe began, looking down at them. "What to do with you."

"You could open up a few options by untying us," Grant said with a smile.

"I wasn't talking to you." She knelt down, taking both of their lengths in each hand, tracing her fingers along their shafts until they rose to attention. "I was talking to -these- guys. Because I want to give them an experience like they're having." She gestured behind her with her head to Claire, still moaning and spasming on the bed; and Kathy, suspended in midair, delirious and overwhelmed with sensation. "But-" She gripped them for emphasis. "-they can't go off quite as much." Standing, she went over to the tray of bottles, opening up the glass vials and taking one in each hand before returning, putting them in William and Grant's mouths and tipping them up. "So let's try this." Both obediently swallowed the contents and Zoe set the bottles aside before running her hands through their hair, petting their heads. "Good boys. Now we let the magic happen."

The two young mens' breathing deepened, and as if on cue their manhoods began to grow in slow, steady bursts, becoming longer and wider, at first large, then comically so. Between their legs their balls swelled rounder, growing full and heavy. In a matter of moments their thighs were cradling orange-sized packages, their lengths double their normal size yet still standing erect despite their new weight; Zoe idly thought to herself that sausage comparisons would be apt, but still lacking.

"Now this is more like it." She leaned in, resting a fingertip on each head; William shivered as his twitched beneath her touch. "Ooh, sensitive." Straightening up, she continued. "But I'd get carpal tunnel if I jerked you off for five hours straight. So..."

With a twirl of a finger a tentacle rose in front of either of them, wrapping around their manhoods before melting and spreading across their skin, engulfing them up to the base in a latex sheath. William let out a gasp and Grant exhaled through his teeth as, beneath the latex, they felt fingers grasp their shafts, working them firmly as invisible lips wrapped around their heads and an unseen tongue flicked across them.

Grant bit his lip, forcing himself still as the latex serviced him, trying to hold back despite the heightened sensitivity. William was less resistant, hips thrusting in time to the pumps as best as he could manage until finally, cheeks red and breathing quickened, he came, a milky white bubble forming near his tip and filling in spurts before falling to the floor. As he relaxed the hands and lips disappeared and his length sagged, but a few seconds later a surprised look crossed his features beneath the blindfold as he hardened again, the latex pushing him towards orgasm once more.

Zoe frowned at Grant. "Really, Grant. Why do you have to be such a brat?" She moved to William's side, lowering herself down and gently holding his head to her chest. "Billy here is a good boy; I want him to come, and he comes. Isn't that right, Billy?" As if in response, a second milky bubble formed. "You're only punishing yourself by holding back." A single, small tentacle rose up behind Grant, brushing against his backside. "Unless you want -me- to punish you?"

Grant grimaced, manhood twitching as he came, filling a golf ball-sized bubble of his own. Zoe smiled as she stood, running her hands through their hair. "Good boy. Both of you are very good boys."

Despite improvising most of it and going with the flow, Zoe was pleased with how things turned out. In hindsight she had no idea how to organize an orgy, but doing it person by person worked out fine, though having a connection to living latex that was transformed and bonded to her after being dragged through the space between spaces certainly helped. Though it was a touch noisy at times and the room was starting to get humid, but she supposed that was a good thing in this situation.

It was about that time that her outfit began melting, dripping off of her and reducing her to a state of nudity. She tried grabbing it and, when that failed, cupping her hands and holding it against her, to no avail. "Hey, I was wearing you!" A pool spread beneath her, and she let out a nervous laugh as several tentacles rose up, sweeping her off her feet and raising her into the air. "Okay, I know what you're thinking-" Two wrapped around her wrists. "-and yes, you can see into my conscious thoughts-" Two more wrapped around her ankles. "-and yes, I might be a little horny-" Another pair entwined her thighs, gently easing her legs apart as a third, ridged and bumped and knobby, aimed itself towards her sex. "-but I was kind of hoping to supervise this a little more, you know, make sure-"

It plunged into her, twisting and pulsating, pushing her to climax within seconds. Zoe's back arched, and she let out an ear-splitting "FUCK!" before clarity returned to her. "Oh god," she panted, "I needed that. Keep going!"

As it continued pistoning in and out of her, the come-filled bubbles in front of the two young men sank into its distant shape, a translucent sack forming on the underside of the appendage servicing Zoe. It sank into her again, and she felt something warm and thick spill into her. Raising her head, she looked between the tentacle and the young men in disbelief. "Wait, are you seriously going to pump me full of everything they- I'm gonna be huge!" The sack shrank down for a brief moment before she pointed at it. "Hey, I didn't tell you to stop, did I?"

 

*****

 

When all was said and done, Zoe and Heartbreak Squad enjoyed a long rest. William and Grant were propped up at the foot of the bed, leaning against each other, sound asleep. Her need sated, Claire was peacefully resting on one side of the bed, with Kathy on the other. Between them was Zoe, thoroughly exhausted, belly swollen to a scale only seen on the heavily pregnant.

After she woke, Kathy said it best: "We are never talking about this again."


	22. Gott Sein

Zoe kept telling herself the hard part was over, and it was true, if only because she couldn't think of how it could be any harder. Of course, just because the hard part was over didn't mean that what came afterwards was necessarily easy but, she reasoned, half the difficulty of all choices came in making the choice; the other half came from having to live with the consequences.

She thought that Kathy was going to be upset at the new addition taking up space in Heartbreak Squad's hangar. In reality she was confused and surprised, bombarding Zoe with questions. Yes, she was fine. No, she didn't know how long she had been gone. Yes, the godsblood kept her safe from the afflictive energies.

Then the questions got harder. What the epicenter of the disaster was like, what she found out, why she was gone so long, why she was inside of a GR-sized suit of orichalcum animated by godsblood. There were answers, few easy, none she thought she should give. So Zoe gave her noncommittal responses, knowing full well Kathy wouldn't fall for it, and she didn't, inquiring further and only stopping when William interceded on Zoe's behalf.

"The church didn't want anyone going there for a reason," he said. "Maybe there's some things we're better off not knowing."

He wasn't wrong.

 

*****

 

It was a long walk back to Sanct Ainsley, but they remained with her. The hangar crew, naturally, had some questions of their own, but Kathy informed them that the design of the strange new GR was purely cosmetic. Furthermore, no one was to even touch it unless explicitly given permission by Zoe. Just before they entered, Kathy told Zoe to leave through the back of the armor to make it appear that it was a normal GR, and that they would come up with a suitable explanation for it in the future, preferably one that wouldn't draw too much attention down upon them.

Things settled into relative normalcy after that, though Aenor and Claire were sharp enough to tell that something was off about Zoe's behavior. When approached by them she acknowledged that there was a problem but declined to talk about it, though she was grateful they were concerned. Soon Zoe realized that she would have to talk to someone -eventually-, sooner rather than later, if only to put her mind at rest.

Fortunately, she knew at least one person with the depth and breadth of knowledge with which to discuss the problem.

"You know," Dot began, setting a mug of coffee down in front of Zoe, "I feel like I should give you a quickie at least once with how often you've been in here just to talk." She pulled the chair out, taking a seat. "So, what's on your mind?"

"I've been thinking a lot." She took the mug, staring down into it. "About the summoned god."

Dot scanned her worried expression. "Not to judge, but very few people if any get themselves this worked up over theology. Don't worry about the coffee, by the way; it's decaf. I figured the jitters was the last thing you needed."

"Thank you." Taking a slow sip, she put her thoughts in order. "So I guess I should start by asking, 'what if it succeeded?'"

"'Succeeded' meaning what, exactly?"

"If she was pulled into this world without dying or destroying it in the process."

"Okay," Dot nodded, eyeing Zoe.

"So it's like, 'she's here, so now what?'"

"You mean, how would history have panned out, or how the people would have reacted?"

"Kind of, but more that... well. She helped create the universe, right? But now she's on Eard and can interact directly with it-"

"-assuming that direct intervention previously was impossible..."

"Right, or they just didn't want to do it."

"...or there was a lesser degree to which gods could affect the universe. Sorry, continue."

"So she can interact directly with Eard, but should she? The way I thought of putting it was that there's two questions: 'What gives them the right to go against what -I- want the world to be like?' and 'what gives me the right to go against what -they- want the world to be like?'"

Dot thought for a moment before slowly nodding. "Oh, I think I see. It's an issue of human autonomy." Zoe nodded, and Dot leaned back in her seat, gesturing with one hand. "There's a lot of opinions on that. The philosopher Ian Rook said that a person's right to choose should only be infringed if they are -unable- to know their own interests on a particular matter, though that's the realm of human-to-human interactions."

"Wouldn't the god know better, though?"

"Not necessarily. A few theologians put forth the idea of deific infallibility, but-"

"-but this can't be the best of all possible worlds because you could still imagine a world with one more virtuous person in it."

"Oh, people came up with that where you came from, too?" Zoe nodded. "That was one of the arguments someone made. But the counter-argument to that was that the gods have a better understanding of the universe than we do, so it still might be the best from their point of view."

"So the god wouldn't have to do anything if that was the case."

"But it -would- if the gods were fallible and it appeared," Dot stated, "or if being summoned and intervening was part of the larger divine plan."

"Wouldn't acting out her role in a divine plan imply like, fate or something?" Zoe asked. "That free will was an illusion?"

"'Free will' means different things to different people. But if you mean that there's a divine script where everyone has a pre-set role to play that they can't deviate from, wouldn't that also suggest that the gods were bound to it too?"

"So the god acting or not acting doesn't matter, because no matter what, on some level, she doesn't have a say in it because it's part of the plan."

"Honestly, the idea that not even the gods have free will is too fatalistic for me," she said, shrugging. "Of course, it's all hypothetical. Or most of it, I suppose."

"What do you mean?"

There was a long silence before Dot straightened up in her seat, knitting her fingers together and resting them on the table. "Zoe," she began, "nobody knows what the summoned god was. It's always referred to as 'it,' but you've been calling it 'she.'" 

Zoe felt the color drain from her face.

"I only know of two things that came to Eard from some point outside of the universe: The god, and you, and you're here wondering what 'she' would do if 'she' appeared. Now I can't say for certain what this means, but I can think of a few possibilities."

She lowered her head, staring into her mug for a long while before quietly speaking. "What should I do?"

Dot stood, circling around the table before placing her hand on Zoe's shoulder. "I can't tell you. Not just that I don't know what to say, I don't know if I'd have any place to even if I did."

"No easy answers, huh?"

"Not today," she said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, it's not often that I leave people... unsatisfied."

 

*****

 

When Zoe returned home she headed down to the hangar to inspect... well. She didn't exactly know what to call it, and if she was being honest with herself it might not even be her property. After all, it was made for her, but not -for- her, or for -her-, for that matter. Though ownership rights were a little spotty when there were no records of something even being created, and in any case animating it with quasi-physical god-stuff from the space between planes of existence definitely wasn't the original creator's plan.

As she stood there Claire came up beside her, looking up at it with her. "How do you pilot it?" she asked.

"It's kind of like in G Gu-" She let out a note of annoyance, drumming her fingers on the side of her jeans as she thought. "Okay. I go inside of the godsblood, and I'm not sure if I'm inside of that-" She pointed up at the chestplate. "-or what, but I'm kind of floating in it and can sort of see what's around me. When I move, it follows my motions, but I can feel the ground against my feet and what I touch with its hands. Just pressure, though, not heat or cold."

Claire nodded as one of the hangar crew came up behind them. "'scuse me," he said, and they turned to look at him. "I didn't mean to listen in on you, but I caught the tail end of what you were saying, and you mentioned haptic feedback?"

As Zoe went to ask what he meant, Claire made a light gesture for her to not respond. "Yes."

"Explains why it looks so different," he replied, indicating the armor. "It's kind of a waste, if you ask me. Every few years some company or another comes back to it thinking that they've got it figured out and its time has finally come, and it never catches on. Too expensive for too little payoff."

"GRs aren't used for precision work and normally don't operate anywhere they'd need physical feedback," Claire said. She looked at Zoe out of the corner of her eye and when their gazes met, she gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

"Exactly. I know they dropped direct motion controls early on in GR design, but..." He folded his arms across his chest, one hand over his mouth as he thought. "...bringing it back with better haptics... hmm, maybe. How's it working out for you, Zoe?"

"It... seems okay," she said. "It feels natural to use."

"...and you really don't have any piloting experience?"

"Nope. Maybe that's why I was picked."

"Maybe." He lowered his arms, looking up at the armor again. "No wonder she didn't want us touching it. It's probably all testbed technology. Anyway," he added with a wave as he began to walk away, "sorry I interrupted you. Carry on!"

Zoe watched him leave, waiting until he was out of earshot to speak again. "Thanks, Claire."

Claire nodded. "So it moves how you move."

"Basically."

"Did you want to use it?"

"I..." The question caught her off guard. "I'd like to have the option, I guess, unless there was some other place to put the armor. I can't really give it to a museum or something and tell them what it is since people would start asking questions."

"Do you know how to fight?"

She opened her mouth, then immediately closed it again. "No."

"Did you want to learn?"

"...well, I guess I'd have to know how since it's all me, so... yeah. Yeah, I do."

"Good." She turned on her heel. "We start tomorrow."

Zoe blinked. "That's it?"

"That's it."


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally posted as "Alien x Robot."

"So Dot, what are -you- into?"

 

*****

 

The evening sky was dark, the clouds heavy as a light rain fell on Sanct Ainsley. It had been a slow day for Dot, and the blonde gynoid was taking the opportunity to change the sheets on the bed early and neaten up her work space. Suddenly there was a knock at the door; odd, she thought, considering the weather and time of night. She took a moment to adjust her crop top and shorts before answering, finding Zoe waiting for her. "Zoe? Did something happen? Need someone to talk to?"

"Sort of. Can I come in?" Dot nodded and she entered, taking a moment to straighten out her damp hair. "You know I'm not from around here, right?"

"Of course."

"Well, I wasn't exactly being honest with what I told you. I was actually sent to this world from the planet Vulcan by our leader, Darth Vader." Zoe paused, fighting to keep herself from smiling. "Our species requires other races to carry our young, but as our empire spread across the stars, we couldn't find any more, and the ones that could struggled to keep us from dying out."

"I don't understand," Dot said. "What does this have to do with me?"

"Scordatura." Zoe took Dot's hands in hers, holding them to her chest. "I want you to bear my eggs."

Dot stared at her, mouth slowly going agape but interest clearly in her eyes. "Is that possible? Because you look so much like us, I assumed that you were... the same."

Zoe took a step back. "I resemble your planet's women," she began, unbuttoning her jeans, "but I am quite different." She opened her fly; the latex of her suit had retracted to below her navel, taking on the approximate color of her skin, and a helix of three entwined tentacles emerged from near her crotch. It was large on her frame, and as she ran one hand along its length it squirmed at her touch.

"Is that your...?"

"Yes. My ovipositor."

"Is it painful?"

"Not at all. It's much like sex for your kind."

Dot made a show of hesitating in thought before nodding. "I'll do it." Putting her fingers into either side of her shorts' waistline, she slid it down her hips before letting it fall to the floor and stepping out of it. "Anything to save your people." Her sex looked remarkably real despite the cream color of her exterior, swollen and flushed with color. With barely restrained eagerness she climbed onto the bed on her hands and knees before turning onto her back, legs bent and spread.

Zoe approached, and as she eased herself onto the sheets, shuffling forward on her knees, she realized that she had absolutely no idea what to do.

Beneath the latex on one of her legs she felt a gentle pat and rub, a gesture of reassurance from her outfit. Two hands touched against the insides of her thighs before sliding around them and cradling them from beneath as two more held her hips, pressing into her from behind. Following its lead she took Dot by the thighs, raising her backside off the bed as she pushed forward, the tentacles turning as they sank into her.

Dot's face lit up. "Oh, that feels str-" Immediately the tentacles began twisting around, probing inside of her, and she let out a pleased sigh as her back arched, hands gripping the bedsheet. "Oh gods, they're pressing against -everything-."

Zoe hesitated, watching Dot for a second until the hands at her hips pushed and she awkwardly thrusted into her. As she eased back the touch lifted for a moment before pressing again, guiding her into a slow in-out. The tentacles seemed to be doing their job well enough, though she wondered if she shouldn't say something in-character. "Is this pleasing to you?"

"Oh yes," she breathed. "Please, fill me with your eggs."

She nodded, and the latex played its role in turn. The tentacles slid apart ever so slightly near the base, and emerging from between them came a tan and brown mottled ovoid mass, no larger than a chicken egg. Undulating, they pushed it down their length, pressing it deep into Dot, and it and Zoe were rewarded with a gasp from Dot as her hips spasmed, wetness dripping onto the sheets. A second egg followed, then a third, entering her one after the other as Zoe's hips rocked into Dot. As she was filled she moved one hand to the growing bulge of her abdomen, feeling it rise higher as her synthetic skin stretched to contain them. "It's so many," she exclaimed, smiling as she panted. "I'm going to be a mommy to so many babies."

Zoe had lost track of how many eggs had entered Dot when the tentacles finally withdrew, leaving her figure positively gravid. Dot's body relaxed, and she ran both hands over the swell of her body as the eggs inside shifted gently. Lowering her legs, Zoe crawled across the bed to Dot's side, lying down next to her as she rested one hand atop her, fingertips tracing small circles on her skin. "Thank you," Zoe said. As Dot turned to look at her she leaned in, gently kissing the gynoid. "With this, you have helped save my people."

"How long will I be pregnant?" Dot asked.

"Several weeks by your planet's time," Zoe replied, "but I must warn you that as you near their birth, carrying them will grow more stim-" She forced down a smile. "Stimul-" she repeated, before lapsing into a giggling fit. "I'm sorry." She turned her head, burying her face in the sheets. "I'm trying."

"No, it's fine," she said, patting her on the arm. "You did good." She looked down at herself again, satisfied. "Thank you."

Zoe nodded. "Wouldn't have pegged you for pregnancy, though."

Dot shrugged. "I'm allowed."


End file.
